Literary Collection Books
Page 1 of 10 - 239 results
The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979: Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell, and Their Circle
Hamilton, Saskia (Edt)
(Hardcover)
List Price: $50.00 Our Price: $19.09
The correspondence between one of the most famous couples of twentieth-century literatureThe Dolphin Letters offers an unprecedented portrait of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick during the last seven years of Lowell’s life (1970 to 1977), a time of personal crisis and creative innovation for both writers. Centered on the letters they exchanged with each other and with other members of their circle - writers, intellectuals, friends, and publishers, including Elizabeth Bishop, Caroline Blackwood, Mary McCarthy, and Adrienne Rich - the book has the narrative sweep of a novel, telling the story of the dramatic breakup of their twenty-one-year marriage and their extraordinary, but late, reconciliation.Lowell’s controversial sonnet-sequence The Dolphin (for which he used Hardwick’s letters as a source) and his last book, Day by Day, were written during this period, as were Hardwick’s influential books Seduction and Betrayal: Essays on Women in Literature and Sleepless Nights: A Novel. Lowell and Hardwick are acutely intelligent observers of marriages, children, and friends, and of the feelings that their personal crises gave rise to.The Dolphin Letters, masterfully edited by Saskia Hamilton, is a debate about the limits of art - what occasions a work of art, what moral and artistic license artists have to make use of their lives as material, what formal innovations such debates give rise to. The crisis of Lowell’s The Dolphin was profoundly affecting to everyone surrounding him, and Bishop’s warning to Lowell - art just isn’t worth that much - haunts.
The Letters of Sylvia Plath (Vol. 2 - 1956-1963)
Plath, Sylvia
(Hardcover)
List Price: $45.00 Our Price: $17.09
The second volume in the definitive, complete collection of the letters of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Sylvia Plath, from the early years of her marriage to Ted Hughes to the final days leading to her suicide in 1963, many never before seen.One of the most talented and beloved poets, Sylvia Plath continues to fascinate and inspire the modern literary imagination. The tragedy of her untimely death at age thirty, almost fifty-five years ago, has left much unknown about her creative and personal life. In this remarkable second volume of the iconic poet and writer’s collected letters, the full range of Plath’s ambitions, talents, fears, and perspective is made visible through her own powerful words.As engaging as they are revealing, these remarkable letters cover the years from 1957 to 1963. They detail the last six tumultuous and prolific years of her life, covering her marriage to Ted Hughes, the births of her children Frieda and Nicholas, her early success, including the publication of the classic The Bell Jar, and her ongoing struggle with depression.The first compendium of its kind to include all of Plath’s letters from this period, The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 2 offers an intimate portrait of the writing life and mind of one of the most celebrated poets in literary history.
The 60s: The Story of a Decade
The New Yorker Magazine
(Hardcover)
List Price: $35.00 Our Price: $15.09
This fascinating anthology collects notable New Yorker pieces from the most tumultuous years of the twentieth century - including work by James Baldwin, Pauline Kael, Sylvia Plath, Roger Angell, and Muriel Spark - alongside new assessments of the 1960s by some of today’s finest writers.Here are real-time accounts of these years, brought to immediate and profound life: Calvin Trillin reports on the integration of Southern universities, E. B. White and John Updike wrestle with the enormity of the Kennedy assassination, and Jonathan Schell travels with American troops into the jungles of Vietnam. Some of the truly timeless works of American journalism came out of The New Yorker that decade, including Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, all excerpted here. The arts, too, underwent an extraordinary transformation, with the magazine publishing such indelible short story masterpieces as John Cheever’s “The Swimmer” and John Updike’s “A & P”; iconic poems by Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton; and in-depth profiles of crucial cultural figures like Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and Muhammad Ali (when he was still Cassius Clay). This collection of groundbreaking pieces is also given contemporary context by current New Yorker writers, resulting in an incomparable portrait of a truly galvanizing era.Including contributions by Renata Adler • Roger Angell • Hannah Arendt • James Baldwin • Truman Capote • Rachel Carson • John Cheever • Mavis Gallant • Pauline Kaell • Jane Kramer • John McPhee • Sylvia Plath • Muriel Spark • Calvin Trillin • John Updike • E. B. WhiteAnd featuring new perspectives by Jennifer Egan • Malcolm Gladwell • Dana Goodyear • Adam Gopnik • Jill Lepore • Larissa MacFarquhar • Evan Osnos • George Packer • Kelefa Sanneh
Speeches of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Orations Deserving of a Wider Audience
Usher, Shaun
(Hardcover)
List Price: $40.00 Our Price: $15.09
This thoughtfully curated and richly illustrated collection celebrates oratory old and new, highlighting speeches we know and admire, while also shining a light on profound drafts that were never delivered or have until now been forgotten. Speeches of Note honors the words and ideas of some of history's most scintillating, provocative, and inspiring personalities.
Jerome Robbins, by Himself: Selections from His Letters, Journals, Drawings, Photographs, and an Unfinished Memoir
Robbins, Jerome
(Hardcover)
List Price: $40.00 Our Price: $12.99
The titanic choreographer, creator of memorable ballets, master of Broadway musicals, legendary show doctor and director, now revealed in his own words--the closest we will get to a memoir/autobiography--from his voluminous letters, journals, notes, diaries, never before published. Edited, and with commentary by Amanda Vaill, author of Robbins's biography, Somewhere.
New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent
Busby, Margaret (Edt)
(Hardcover)
List Price: $32.99 Our Price: $12.99
A major international collection that brings together the work of more than 200 women writers of African descent, celebrating their artistry and showcasing their contributions to modern literature and international culture.Contributors include:• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie • Yrsa Daley Ward• Edwidge Danticat • Phillippa Yrsa De Villiers • Esi Edugyan • Eve Ewing • Nikki Finney • Roxane Gay• Margo Jefferson • Barbara Jenkins • Imbolo Mbue • Nnedi Okorafor • Chinelo Okparanta • Minna Salami • Zadie Smith • and more!Twenty-five years ago, Margaret Busby’s Daughters of Africa was published to international acclaim and hailed as “an extraordinary body of achievement . . . a vital document of lost history” (Sunday Times) and “the ultimate reference guide” (Washington Post). New Daughters of Africa continues that tradition for a new generation.This magnificent follow-up to the original landmark anthology brings together fresh and vibrant voices that have emerged from across the globe in the past two decades, from Antigua to Zimbabwe and Angola to the United States. Each of the pieces in this remarkable collection demonstrates an uplifting sense of sisterhood, honors the strong links that endure from generation to generation, and addresses the common obstacles female writers of color face as they negotiate issues of race, gender, and class and address vital matters of independence, freedom, and oppression.A glorious portrayal of the richness, magnitude, and range of these visionary writers, New Daughters of Africa spans a range of genres - autobiography, memoir, oral history, letters, diaries, short stories, novels, poetry, drama, humor, politics, journalism, essays, and speeches - demonstrating the diversity and extraordinary literary achievements of black women who remain underrepresented, and whose contributions continue to be underrated in world culture today.
The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Stories, Plays, Poems & Essays
Wilde, Oscar
(Softcover)
List Price: $25.00 Our Price: $11.89
Here is a collection of this witty and irreverent author's works - all in their most authoritative texts. Includes The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, and other stories and essays.
Essays One
Davis, Lydia
(Hardcover)
List Price: $30.00 Our Price: $11.89
A selection of essays on writing and reading by the master short-fiction writer Lydia DavisLydia Davis is a writer whose originality, influence, and wit are beyond compare. Jonathan Franzen has called her "a magician of self-consciousness," while Rick Moody hails her as "the best prose stylist in America." And for Claire Messud, "Davis's signal gift is to make us feel alive."Best known for her masterful short stories and translations, Davis’s gifts extend equally to her nonfiction. With Essays One, Davis has, for the first time, gathered under one cover essays, commentaries, and lectures composed over the past four decades. In this first of two volumes, her subjects range from her earliest influences to her favorite short stories, from John Ashberry's translation of Rimbaud to Alan Cote's painting from a close study of the Shepherd's Psalm to a presentation of early tourist photographs.Davis is best known for her masterful stories and translations, but her peerless style is not bound by genre or form. Nor is the quality of her patient and thoughtful attention, as she turns her lens, here, on a range of subjects - reading, writing, memory, et al. In whatever she writes, Davis, with her wry and haunting voice, her generous and incisive curiosity, makes a singular contribution to American letters.
Feel Free (Large Print)
Smith, Zadie
(Paperback)
List Price: $30.00 Our Price: $11.89
A timely, powerful collection of essays from one of our sharpest minds and most sparkling stylists.How much joy can a person tolerate? How many kinds of boredom make up a life? Who owns the story of black America? Should Justin Bieber be more like Socrates? And why is there a dead art collector floating in the swimming pool?Dazzlingly insightful, explosively funny and ever-timely, Zadie Smith is back with a second unmissable collection of essays. From German Old Masters to the new masters of East Coast rap, from social networks opening lines of communication to national referenda closing doors, Feel Free reaches out in all directions and draws back a rich feast of ideas. Here pop culture, high culture, social change and political debate all get the Zadie Smith treatment: dissected with razor-sharp intellect, set brilliantly against the context of the utterly contemporary, and considered with a deep humanity and compassion.With the easy intimacy of a local and the piercing clarity of an outsider, Feel Free casts a sharp critical eye over the creative luminaries that have shaped our world: from J. G. Ballard to Karl Ove Knausgaard, Orson Welles to Charlie Kaufman, Joni Mitchell to Beyonce, and far beyond. And it considers the points of contact where the author herself meets this world, where the political meets the personal and critique meets memoir. This electrifying new collection showcases Zadie Smith as a true literary powerhouse, demonstrating once again her credentials as an essential voice of her generation.
Lists of Note
Usher, Shaun
(Hardcover)
List Price: $39.59 Our Price: $11.89
Humans have been making lists for even longer than they've been writing letters. They are the shorthand for what really matters to us: our hopes and aspirations; likes and dislikes; rules for living and loving; records of our memories and reminders of the things we want to do before we die. Just as he did with Letters of Note, Shaun Usher has trawled the world's archives to produce a rich visual anthology that stretches from ancient times to present day. From a to-do list of Leonardo da Vinci's to Charles Darwin on the pros and cons of marriage or Julia Child's list of possible titles for what would later become an American cooking bible, Lists of Note is a constantly surprising A-Z of what makes us human. In its pages you'll find 125 lists with facsimiles or illustrations, including:1. A shopping list written by two 9th-century Tibetan monks2. A handwritten list of the BFG's favourite words by Roald Dahl3. The 19 year-old Isaac Newton's list of the 57 sins he'd already committed4. Galileo's list of parts needed to build his telescope5. Einstein's punitive list of conditions imposed on his first wife6. 29-year-old Marilyn Monroe's inspirational set of New Year's resolutions7. Martin Luther King's advice for black people starting to use buses8. Johnny Cash's list of 'things to do today'9. Michelangelo's illustrated shopping list10. Advice for 'chick rockers' by Chrissie HyndeAnd many, many more...
Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion
Hoskyns, Barney (Edt)
(Hardcover)
List Price: $27.95 Our Price: $11.89
At its core a creative marriage between Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, Steely Dan has sold over 45 million albums and recorded several of the cleverest and best-produced albums of the 1970s - from the breathlessly catchy Can’t Buy a Thrill to the sleekly sinister Gaucho - making them one of the most successful rock acts of the past fifty years. More than ten years after their break-up in 1981, they returned to remind fans of how sorely they had missed their elegance and erudition, subsequently recording Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go during the following decade, touring continuously, and being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.Major Dudes collects some of the smartest and wittiest interviews Becker and Fagen have ever given, along with insightful reviews of - and commentary on - their extraordinary songs. Compiled by leading music critic and writer Barney Hoskyns, Major Dudes features contributions from Chris Van Ness, Steven Rosen, and the late Robert Palmer, and pieces including rare interviews and reviews of Steely Dan’s early albums from Disc, Melody Maker, and Rolling Stone.With an afterword examining the musical legacy of and memorializing the late Walter Becker, who since his passing Rolling Stone has heralded as the “brilliant perfectionist behind one of rock’s most eccentric bands,” Major Dudes is the most comprehensive anthology of Steely Dan ever compiled and will be the centerpiece on every fan’s shelf.
RFK: His Words for Our Times (Large Print)
Allen, C. Richard (Edt)
(Paperback)
List Price: $30.99 Our Price: $11.89
In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Robert Francis Kennedy’s death, an inspiring collection of his most famous speeches accompanied by commentary from notable historians and public figures.Twenty-five years after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, RFK: His Words for Our Times, a celebration of Kennedy’s life and legacy, was published to enormous acclaim. Now, a quarter century later, this classic volume has been thoroughly edited and updated. Through his own words we get a direct and intimate perspective on Kennedy’s views on civil rights, social justice, the war in Vietnam, foreign policy, the desirability of peace, the need to eliminate poverty, and the role of hope in American politics.Here, too, is evidence of the impact of those he knew and worked with, including his brother John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Cesar Chavez, among others. The tightly curated collection also includes commentary about RFK’s legacy from major historians and public figures, among them Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Eric Garcetti, William Manchester, Elie Wiesel, and Desmond Tutu. Assembled with the full cooperation of the Kennedy family, RFK: His Words for Our Times is a potent reminder of Robert Kennedy’s ability to imagine a greater America - a faith and vision we could use today.
The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump: Essays and Reportage, 1994-2017
Amis, Martin
(Hardcover)
List Price: $28.95 Our Price: $11.89
As a journalist, critic, and novelist, Martin Amis has always turned his keen intellect and unrivaled prose loose on an astonishing range of topics—politics, sports, celebrity, America, and, of course, literature. Collected here is some of his best nonfiction work from over two decades. Amis writes about finally confronting the effects of aging on his athletic prowess. He revisits the worlds of Bellow and Nabokov, his “twin peaks,” masters who have obsessed and inspired him. And he turns his piercingly observant eye on Donald Trump, whom he finds “scowling out from under an omelette of makeup” in the run-up to the 2016 Republican Convention, and at a post-election rally, regarding his crowd of supporters with a “flat sneer of Ozymandian hauteur.”Overflowing with startling and singular turns of phrase, and complete with new commentary by the author, The Rub of Time is a vital addition to any bookshelf, and the perfect primer for readers discovering Amis’s fierce talents for the first time.
A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma
Eimer, David
(Hardcover)
List Price: $34.00 Our Price: $11.89
David Eimer journeys to the heart of Burma and out to its unexplored vistas, bringing to vivid life all its riches and complexities.For almost fifty years Burma was ruled by a paranoid military dictatorship and isolated from the outside world. At this time, Burma became Myanmar without local accord. Eimer sides with the locals by using its original name, refusing to let the nation's history be rewritten. In 2015, a historic election swept an Aung San Suu Kyi-led civilian government to power and was supposed to usher in a new golden era of democracy and progress, but Burma remains unstable and undeveloped, a little-understood country.Nothing is straightforward in this captivating land-home to a combustible mix of races, religions and resources. Eimer reveals a country where temples take priority over infrastructure, fortune tellers thrive and golf courses are carved out of war zones. Setting out from Yangon, David Eimer travels through this enigmatic nation, from the tropical south to the Burmese Himalayas in the far north. The story of modern Burma is told through the voices of the people Eimer encounters: former political exiles, squatters in Yangon's shanty towns, radical monks, Rohingya refugees, princesses and warlords, and ethnic minorities clustered along Burma's frontiers.Layers of history are unfurled and innumerable stories are woven together to create a sensitive and revelatory portrait of this mysterious country. Authoritative and ground-breaking, A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma is set to be a modern classic of travel writing.
Spring
Knausgaard, Karl Ove
(Hardcover)
List Price: $36.00 Our Price: $11.89
In Spring, third volume of the Seasons quartet, we follow Karl Ove and his three-month-old daughter, Anna, over the course of one day in April, from sunrise to sunset: a day filled with routine, the beginnings of life and its light, but also its deep struggles and its darkness.In Spring, one of the world's most beguiling literary artists celebrates the greatness of the everyday--the beautiful and the painful--and the big things that hide behind the smallest events in all our lives. Whereas the first two books in Knausgaard's sublime Seasons series are comprised of short texts--sightings of things and places, associations and reflections related to nature and the material world--Spring is a narrative memoir that reads like a short novel. Emotionally captivating, it is the most accessible of all his books for new Karl Ove readers keen to enter into his writing, while also deeply moving for his devoted readers. This beautiful edition is illustrated by the acclaimed Swedish artist Anna Bjerger.
Westminster Diary: A Reluctant Minister under Tony Blair
Donoughue, Bernard
(Hardcover)
List Price: $40.00 Our Price: $11.89
On 2nd May 1997, Tony Blair swept into Downing Street, ending almost twenty years of Conservative government and beginning a decade as Prime Minister. Bernard Donoughue, a Labour peer in the House of Lords, chronicled the path to this momentous election victory in his diaries and this volume sheds new light on the process of forming government and on life working as a minister in the House of Lords. Infused with Donoughue's trademark wit and insight, the diaries covers daily life for a working peer – from the committees, bill discussion and public appearances to political spats – both policy-related and personal. Donoughue also casts a wry glance at a peer's extra-curricular events – from dinners and other high-profile social events to his own favourite hobby, horse-racing. Featuring a cast of high-profile political characters, this book is a must-read for fans of political diaries and anyone with an interest in the inside workings of Westminster.
What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays
Young, Damon
(Hardcover)
List Price: $27.99 Our Price: $11.89
For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as "How should I react here, as a professional black person?" and "Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?" are forever relevant.What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him.It’s a condition that’s sometimes stretched to absurd limits, provoking the angst that made him question if he was any good at the "being straight" thing, as if his sexual orientation was something he could practice and get better at, like a crossover dribble move or knitting; creating the farce where, as a teen, he wished for a white person to call him a racial slur just so he could fight him and have a great story about it; and generating the surreality of watching gentrification transform his Pittsburgh neighborhood from predominantly Black to "Portlandia . . . but with Pierogies."And, at its most devastating, it provides him reason to believe that his mother would be alive today if she were white.From one of our most respected cultural observers, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker is a hilarious and honest debut that is both a celebration of the idiosyncrasies and distinctions of Blackness and a critique of white supremacy and how we define masculinity.
Serious Noticing: Selected Essays, 1997-2019
Wood, James
(Hardcover)
List Price: $30.00 Our Price: $11.65
The definitive collection of literary essays by The New Yorker’s award-winning longtime book criticEver since the publication of his first essay collection, The Broken Estate, in 1999, James Wood has been widely regarded as a leading literary critic of the English-speaking world. His essays on canonical writers (Gustav Flaubert, Herman Melville), recent legends (Don DeLillo, Marilynne Robinson) and significant contemporaries (Zadie Smith, Elena Ferrante) have established a standard for informed and incisive appreciation, composed in a distinctive literary style all their own.Together, Wood’s essays, and his bestselling How Fiction Works, share an abiding preoccupation with how fiction tells its own truths, and with the vocation of the writer in a world haunted by the absence of God. In Serious Noticing, Wood collects his best essays from two decades of his career, supplementing earlier work with autobiographical reflections from his book The Nearest Thing to Life and recent essays from The New Yorker on young writers of extraordinary promise. The result is an essential guide to literature in the new millennium.
Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction
VanderMeer, Jeff
(Paperback)
List Price: $24.95 Our Price: $11.39
This all-new definitive guide to writing imaginative fiction takes a completely novel approach and fully exploits the visual nature of fantasy through original drawings, maps, renderings, and exercises to create a spectacularly beautiful and inspiring object. Employing an accessible, example-rich approach, Wonderbook energizes and motivates while also providing practical, nuts-and-bolts information needed to improve as a writer. Aimed at aspiring and intermediate-level writers, Wonderbook includes helpful sidebars and essays from some of the biggest names in fantasy today, such as George R. R. Martin, Lev Grossman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Catherynne M. Valente, and Karen Joy Fowler, to name a few.
Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction
Vandermeer, Jeff
(Softcover)
List Price: $24.99 Our Price: $11.39
Wonderbook has become the definitive guide to writing science fiction and fantasy by offering an accessible, example-rich approach that emphasizes the importance of playfulness as well as pragmatism. It also exploits the visual nature of genre culture and employs bold, full-color drawings, maps, renderings, and visualizations to stimulate creative thinking. On top of all that, the book features sidebars and essays from some of the biggest names working in the field today, including George R. R. Martin, Lev Grossman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, and Karen Joy Fowler.For the fifth anniversary of the original publication, Jeff VanderMeer has added an additional 50 pages of diagrams, illustrations, and writing exercises creating the ultimate volume of inspiring advice that is also a stunning and inspiring object.
Sabers and Utopias: Visions of Latin America
Llosa, Mario Vargas
(Hardcover)
List Price: $28.00 Our Price: $11.09
A landmark collection of essays on the Nobel laureate’s conception of Latin America, past, present, and futureThroughout his career, the Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa has grappled with the concept of Latin America on a global stage. Examining liberal claims and searching for cohesion, he continuously weighs the reality of the continent against the image it projects, and considers the political dangers and possibilities that face this diverse set of countries.Now this illuminating and versatile collection assembles these never-before-translated criticisms and meditations. Reflecting the intellectual development of the writer himself, these essays distill the great events of Latin America’s recent history, analyze political groups like FARC and Sendero Luminoso, and evaluate the legacies of infamous leaders such as Papa Doc Duvalier and Fidel Castro. Arranged by theme, they trace Vargas Llosa’s unwavering demand for freedom, his embrace of and disenchantment with revolutions, and his critique of nationalism, populism, indigenism, and corruption.From the discovery of liberal ideas to a defense of democracy, buoyed by a passionate invocation of Latin American literature and art, Sabers and Utopias is a monumental collection from one of our most important writers. Uncompromising and adamantly optimistic, these social and political essays are a paean to thoughtful engagement and a brave indictment of the discrimination and fear that can divide a society.
When They Go Low, We Go High: Speeches That Shape the World and Why We Need Them
Collins, Philip
(Hardcover)
List Price: $32.50 Our Price: $11.09
When First Lady Michelle Obama approached the podium at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, nobody could have predicted that her rousing and emotional "When they go low, we go high" speech would go on to become the motto for the political left and an anthem for opponents of oppression worldwide. It was a speech with the kind of emotional pull rarely heard these days, joining a long list of addresses that have made history. But what about Obama's speech made it so great?When They Go Low, We Go High explores the most notable speeches in history, analyzing the rhetorical tricks to uncover how the right speech at the right time can profoundly shape the world. Traveling across continents and centuries, political speechwriter Philip Collins reveals what Thomas Jefferson owes to Cicero and Pericles, who really gave the Gettysburg Address, and what Elizabeth I shares with Winston Churchill.In telling the story of great and sometimes infamous speeches--including those from Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., Disraeli, Hitler, Elie Wiesel, Margaret Thatcher, and Barack and Michelle Obama--Collins breathes new life into words you thought you knew well, telling the story of democracy. Whether it's the inaugural addresses of presidents or the revolutionary writings of Castro, Pankhurst, and Mandela, Collins illuminates and contextualizes these moments with sensitivity and humor.When They Go Low, We Go High is a strong defense of the power of public speaking to propagate and protect democracy and an urgent reminder that when great men and women speak to us, their words can change the world.
97,196 Words: Essays
Carrere, Emmanuel
(Hardcover)
List Price: $28.00 Our Price: $10.79
A selection of the best short work by France's greatest living nonfiction writerNo one writes nonfiction like Emmanuel Carrère. Although he takes cues from such literary heroes as Truman Capote and Janet Malcolm, Carrère has, over the course of his career, reinvented the form in a search for truth in all its guises. Dispensing with the rules of genre, he takes what he needs from every available form or discipline - be it theology, historiography, fiction, reportage, or memoir - and fuses it under the pressure of an inimitable combination of passion, curiosity, intellect, and wit. With an oeuvre unique in world literature for its blend of empathy and playfulness, Carrère stands as one of our most distinctive and important literary voices.97,196 Words introduces Carrère’s shorter works to an English-language audience. Featuring more than thirty extraordinary essays written over an illustrious twenty-five-year period of Carrère’s creative life, this collection shows an exceptional mind at work. Spanning continents, histories, and personal relationships, and treating everything from American heroin addicts to the writing of In Cold Blood, from the philosophy of Philip K. Dick to a single haunting sentence in a minor story by H. P. Lovecraft, from Carrère’s own botched interview with Catherine Deneuve to the week he spent following the future French president Emmanuel Macron, 97,196 Words considers the divides between truth, reality, and our shared humanity as it explores remarkable events and eccentric lives, including Carrère’s own.
I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution
Nussbaum, Emily
(Hardcover)
List Price: $28.00 Our Price: $10.79
From her creation of the "Approval Matrix" in New York magazine in 2004 to her Pulitzer Prize-winning columns for The New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum has argued for a new way of looking at TV. In this collection, including two never-before-published essays, Nussbaum writes about her passion for television, beginning with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show that set her on a fresh intellectual path. She explores the rise of the female screw-up, how fans warp the shows they love, the messy power of sexual violence on TV, and the year that jokes helped elect a reality-television president. There are three big profiles of television showrunners--Kenya Barris, Jenji Kohan, and Ryan Murphy--as well as examinations of the legacies of Norman Lear and Joan Rivers. The book also includes a major new essay written during the year of #MeToo, wrestling with the question of what to do when the artist you love is a monster.More than a collection of reviews, the book makes a case for toppling the status anxiety that has long haunted the "idiot box," even as it transformed. Through it all, Nussbaum recounts her fervent search, over fifteen years, for a new kind of criticism, one that resists the false hierarchy that elevates one kind of culture (violent, dramatic, gritty) over another (joyful, funny, stylized). I Like to Watch traces her own struggle to punch through stifling notions of "prestige television," searching for a more expansive, more embracing vision of artistic ambition--one that acknowledges many types of beauty and complexity and opens to more varied voices. It's a book that celebrates television as television, even as each year warps the definition of just what that might mean.
Page 1 of 10 - 239 results
To Top