Bücher der Reihe Harvest Book

In these essays, Dirda introduces nearly 90 of the world's most entertaining books. Writing with affection and authority, he covers masterpieces of fantasy and science fiction, horror and adventure, as well as epics, history, essay and children's literature.

Drawing on the real-life stories of twenty exemplary caregivers, Dr. Charles Garfield explains the widely used Shanti caregivers model he originated-and shows how to set limits, avoid burnout, accept gratitude, and grapple with issues of life and death when caring for people with HIV/AIDS.

With characteristic tongue-in-cheek wit, Reed tackles the questions, Just what is ?the South? today? Where is it? Why are Southerners so devoted to it? Instructional maps include ?Where Kudzu Grows? and ?States Mentioned in Country Music Lyrics.?

Mary Renault wrote with such authority about Ancient Greece and of love between men that many readers believed that the author of such well-known works as The Charioteer, The King Must Die, The Persian Boy, and The Last of the Wine must be male. In fact, Mary Renault was the pseudonym of an intensely private woman - a revolutionary in sexual matters who throughout her life preferred the company of gay men. Born Mary Challans outside London, Renault discovered scholarship at Oxford in the early days of admission to women. She eventually abandoned the academic world to attend nursing school where she met her lifelong companion, Julie Mullard. Writing became Renault's avocation, and when, in 1947, she won a large literary award, the two women embarked for South Africa. There Renault, a passionate believer in Greek ideals of democracy and justice, spoke out against apartheid, but she grew disillusioned with radical politics and eventually withdrew into her own world. Based on rare interviews with Renault and full access to her correspondence, this is a brilliantly textured picture of Renault that offers a revealing analysis of the author and her novels.

Madness, cruelty, and sexuality permeate the household in which Lilian Una Singer is raised-an upper-crust Victorian world of teacups and servants. But Lilian, shielded by layers of fat, an iron will, and an indomitable spirit, has her sights set on an education, love, and-finally-her own transcendent forms of independence.

Breyten Breytenbach is one of South Africa's foremost but for years he has had a complex and painful relationship with his home country. In 1973, after thirteen years in exile, he was permitted a three-month visit there. A Season in Paradise, the first part of his triptych about South Africa, is an account of that bittersweet trip: "A spiritual journey, an earthly travelog, a poet's chronicle of his soul, the mythic biography of a country, an exotic picture album, a revolutionary treatise, a wrenching lament for a dying species, the book is all of these" (Andrei Codrescu).In 1975, Breytenbach returned to South Africa illegally. He was arrested, tried for "terrorism, " and served seven years in prison, two of them in solitary confinement. On his release, he recounted his harrowing experiences in The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist: "It is a reasonable metaphor to describe this book as an explosive device ticking away at the very foundations of the idea of a white nationalism in Africa" (The New York Times Book Review, front page).In 1991, after Nelson Mandela had been freed and the ban on the African National Congress (ANC) had been lifted, Breytenbach returned to South Africa for yet another three-month-long foray. For his account of that third trip, Return to Paradise, he was awarded the prestigious Alan Paton Prize.

Breytenbach's first visit to South Africa, after thirteen years in exile, is more than just a dazzling travelogue. He is searching for a "paradise" that coincides with the geography, mysticism, and mythologies of Africa, but in reality his homeland is an often hellish region of racial discrimination and bigotry. Introduction by André Brink. Translated by Rike Vaughan.

An authority on eighteenth-century music explores the background and composition of Messiah and gives the complex subsequent history of the work. Paintings, engravings, caricatures, and facsimiles of Handel's autograph score illustrate the text. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Wallis draws on his experience in urban ghettos to show why traditional liberal and conservative options that emphasize either social justice or personal values fall short. He looks outside the traditional corridors of power to find solutions. Foreword by Garry Wills; Preface by Cornel West.

In this collection of nineteen unforgettable essays, Dr. Selzer describes unsparingly the surgeon's art. Both moving and perversely funny, Mortal Lessons is an established classic that considers not only the workings and misworkings of the human body but also the meaning of life and death. With a Preface written by the Author especially for this edition.

The only book of its kind, Tennis and the Meaning of Life is a resplendent collection of the best fiction (and poetry!) written about this sport/obsession. The stories are hilarious and sad, whimsical and philosophical - and thoroughly saturated with the art of the game.

This is Geldzahler's (longtime curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) written legacy, a collection of essays, interviews, and talks covering three turbulent decades in which he and the artists he championed defined what was new and important in contemporary art. Foreword by David Hockney.

Sister Aimee was a scamp in school, a young widow in China, and a neurotic housewife in Rhode Island, but when the Lord spoke to her, she accepted her ministry and began preaching. This book ?fills a significant gap in the history of revivalism? (New York Times Book Review). Photographs.

Sparks fly when a black television anchorman looking for ?real life? (and higher ratings) hooks up with a spunky young woman from the inner city in this ?touching and wickedly funny novel? (Publishers Weekly) by one of Granta's Best Young american Novelists.

In this wise and refreshing little book, a former Trappist monk describes the spiritual goals and everyday rewards of meditation-an approach that ?is infinitely more helpful and inspiring than the usual and expected treatises on the subject? (Publishers Weekly).

Beer's ?important...fascinating? book(Los Angeles Times) shows how suburban California came to epitomize the american Dream-until its affluent complacency was shattered by downsizing, anxiety, and distrust.

Set in the small English village of Stonebridge, the Orchard on Fire tells the story of eight-year-old April Harlency's coming-of-age in a place where the charm of the local landscape contrasts sharply with the predjuices and vagaries of the adult world. When April encounters the red-haired, energetic Ruby Richards, the two girls become fast friends. Together, they abandon the physical and mental abuse forced on them by adults in their lives and transform an abandoned railway car in an orchard into their secret hideaway, an idyllic camp of shared dreams.

Jim Paul muses on Western philosophy and the medieval mind as he makes his way through a harried weekend in Los Angeles, yielding a ?delightful...humorous? book (Bloomsbury Review) whose every ?sentence bursts with information, gorgeously put? (New Yorker).

In a book that is ?must reading for those interested in the future of the american West? (Kirkus Reviews), Bingham shows how ranchers in Colorado's San Luis Valley-along with a Rhodesian expert, a Canadian billionaire, and a Hindu mathematician-coped with an unfolding environmental disaster: the rapid desertification of their land.

In ?one of the best portrayals of the South in years? (Washington Post), the Atlanta bureau chief of the New York Times travels from catfish farms and neo-Confederate gatherings to casinos and country music festivals and examines the reasons behind the region's growing influence. Index.

A German art historian and a Polish art restorer find adventure and love in the cemetery business. Their vision is to offer plots in Gdansk to those Germans who had been exiled after World War II. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Line drawings by the Author. Translated by Ralph Manheim. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book