Denis Johnson meets Flannery O'Connor in this luminous collection of short stories about the collision of cultures, genders, and generations in the American Southwest. Set mainly amid Indian reservations and uranium mills, these twelve stories create a kaleidoscopic view of family, myth, love, landscape, and loss in a place where infinite skies and endless roads suggest a world of possibility, yet dreams are deceiving, like an oasis, just beyond reach. Whether it's a young woman pushed quite literally to the edge on a desolate mountain pass, an orphaned brother and sister trying to patch together an existence one stitch at a time, a cop who suspects his kleptomaniac wife is stealing from other people - materially and emotionally - or a wily roadside hypnotist whose alleged power is both wonderful and strange, Ann Cummins's characters want to transcend the circumstances of their lives, to believe in the eventuality of change. Again and again, Ann Cummins generates imagery of white-hot intensity and pushes the limits of both the human spirit and the short story form. Gritty, seductive, and always daring, this unforgettable collection puts forth a haunting new vision of hope and heartache in contemporary America and confirms the arrival of an important new voice.
"I was standing up, pressed back against the wall, trying not to breathe. I got there in the one movement my body made. My body had many hairs on legs and belly and chest and head, and each had its own life; each inherited a hundred thousand years of loathing and fear for things that scuttle or slide or crawl." from Free Fall Sammy Mountjoy, artist, rises from poverty and an obscure birth to see his pictures hung in the Tate Gallery. Swept into World War II, he is taken as a prisoner-of-war, threatened with torture, then locked in a cell of total darkness to wait. He emerges from his cell like Lazarus from the tomb, seeing infinity in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour. Transfigured by his ordeal, he begins to realize what man can be and what he has gradually made of himself through his own choices. He determines to find the exact point at which the accumulated weight of those choices has deprived him of free will. Born in Cornwall, England, William Golding started writing at the age of seven. Though he studied natural sciences at Oxford to please his parents, he also studied English and published his first book, a collection of poems, before finishing college. He served in the Royal Navy during World War II, participating in the Normandy invasion. Golding's other novels include Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, The Spire, Rites of Passage (Booker Prize), and The Double Tongue.
It is the summer of 1997. Alec Valentine is returning to England to care for his ailing mother, Alice, a task that only reinforces his deep sense of inadequacy. In San Francisco, his older brother Larry prepares to come home as well, preoccupied with an acting career that is sliding toward sleaze and a marriage that is faltering. In Paris, on the other hand, the Hungarian playwright Lászlo Lázár seems to have it all--critical acclaim, a loving boyfriend, and a close circle of friends--yet even he is haunted by guilt and tragedy. For each of them the time has come to assess the turns taken, the opportunities missed. And for each there will be one last chance to break free from the past and find redemption in a moment of clarity and courage. Andrew Miller has given us an intimate, compelling meditation that evokes an extraordinary range of emotions and insights--Oxygen lives and breathes beyond the final page.
Patricia T. O'Conner, the bestselling language maven who charmed legions of readers into civilizing their grammar (Woe Is I) and their writing (Words Fail Me), now drags proper English kicking and screaming into the Age of E-Mail. Do the old truths still apply? Yes, insist O'Conner and co-author Stewart Kellerman, her journalist husband. In fact, good English and good manners are even more important online. Thanks to the computer, we're writing again, but we'll have to upgrade our lousy language and social skills or suffer the cyber-consequences. With chapters on etiquette (To E or Not to E), beefier writing (The E-Mail Eunuch), deconstructing a message (All's Well That Sends Well), and civilized English (Grammar à la Modem), You Send Me delivers everything you need to connect with real people in the virtual world.
Donoghue finds her inspiration for these wry, robust tales in obscure scraps of historical records: an engraving of a woman giving birth to rabbits; a plague ballad; surgical case notes; theological pamphlets; an articulated skeleton. Here kings, surgeons, soldiers, and ladies of leisure rub shoulders with cross-dressers, cult leaders, poisoners, and arsonists.Whether she's spinning the tale of an Irish soldier tricked into marrying a dowdy spinster, a Victorian surgeon's attempts to "improve" women, a seventeenth-century countess who ran away to Italy disguised as a man, or an "undead" murderess returning for the maid she left behind to be executed in her place, Emma Donoghue brings to her stories an "elegant, colorful prose filled with unforgettable sights, sounds and smells" (Elle). Here she summons the ghosts of those women who counted for nothing in their own day, but who come to unforgettable life in fiction.
A novel by an acclaimed American poet, House Under Snow is a story of mothers and daughters, of sexual identity, of a family slowly disintegrating after the premature death of its patriarch. Anna Crane, soon to be married, reflects back on her childhood in Ohio during the 1960s and '70s with her two sisters and her charismatic, self-destructing mother. Evoking the claustrophobia of small-town life, Anna's first passionate love affair with a troubled boy who works as a groom and trainer at a horse track, and her mother's endless stream of suitors and a failed marriage, the novel races toward a chilling conclusion when Anna is betrayed by the two most important figures in her young life. Not since Alice McDermott's That Night has there been such a telling portrait of first love. And not since Mona Simpson's Anywhere But Here have we witnessed the destructive, seductive nature of a mother who insists on competing with her children. An unforgettable tale of the power and vulnerability of sex and family, history and the past, House Under Snow is a lyrical and brilliant fictional debut.
Hortense Calisher has been hailed as "stand[ing] vividly with Cather and Fitzgerald" (Cynthia Ozick). In this, her latest and most lauded novel, she explores a family united in blood yet divided by ideas. Son Charles hopes to be a Supreme Court justice; family beauty Nell has children by different lovers; art expert Erika has a nose job; and artist Zach has two wives. Their mother, infamous in Israel, born of a well-to-do Boston background but no longer rich, is bound to a past that never quite dies. The buried history of this extraordinary--and very American--family comes to light unexpectedly when grandson Bert brings home as a wife the woman who, years ago, joined the family circle, then mysteriously disappeared. Told with wit and deep acuity, Sunday Jews is a tour de force from a writer whose fiction has justly been compared with that of Eudora Welty and Henry James, and whose ability to delineate our lives is unparalleled.
These essays derive from Teilhard's concern to reveal the true meaning of our age and to stimulate the "sense of man and sense of the Christian." The controversial essay "The Evolution of Chastity" was published here in its entirety for the first time. Foreword by N. M. Wildiers; Index. Translated by René Hague. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
Nineteen essays concerned with the relationship of science and religion. As a believing scientist, Teilhard wrestled with the problem of presenting to the believer a scientific picture that would enlarge his religious vision and to the scientist a statement of religious ideas that would integrate with his understanding of reality. Foreword by N. M. Wildiers; Index. Translated by René Hague.A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
An important Christian philosopher contends that if human energy is channeled in the right direction, "upward and outward," spiritual energy as a motor force in the universe will outdistance technological advance. Index. Translated by René Hague. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
A basic manual of chess by the master José Raul Capablanca, regarded as one of the half dozen greatest players ever. Capablanca was noted especially for his technical mastery, and in this book he explains the fundamentals as no one else could. Diagrams.
Known for her novels, and for the dubious fame of being a doyenne of the 'Bloomsbury Set', in her time Virginia Woolf was highly respected as a major essayist and critic with a special interest and commitment to contemporary literature, and women's writing in particular. This spectacular collection of essays and other writings does justice to those efforts, offering unique appraisals of Aphra Behn, Mary Wollstonecraft, the Duchess of Newcastle, Dorothy Richardson, Charlotte Bronte, and Katherine Mansfield, amongst many others. Gathered too, and using previously unpublished (sometimes even unsigned) journal extracts, are what will now become timeless commentaries on 'Women and Fiction', 'Professions for Women' and 'The Intellectual Status of Women'. More than half a century after the publication of A Room Of One's Own, distinguished scholar Michele Barrett cohesively brings together work which, throughout the years, has been scattered throughout many texts and many volumes. . . affording these very valuable writings the collective distinction they deserve at last.
This centerpiece of the trilogy captures the British at the height of their vigor and self-satisfaction, imposing their traditions and tastes, their idealists and rascals, on diverse peoples of the world. Index. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
This is the author's first novel, which relates the experiences of a young bohemian intellectual. The six episodes create a fascinating portrait of a New York social circle of the 1930s. McCarthy's bold insight and virtuoso style won her immediate recognition as one of the most accomplished, versatile, and penetrating writers in americanca.
The vision that drives Dean Jocelin to construct an immense new spire above his cathedral tests the limits of all who surround him. The foundationless stone pillars shriek and the earth beneath them heaves under the structure's weight as the Dean's will weighs down his collapsing faith.
The opening volume of Morris's ?Pax Britannica Trilogy,? this richly detailed work traces the rise of the British Empire, from the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne in 1837 to the celebration of her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Index. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
Merton defines Christian mysticism, especially as expressed by the Spanish Carmelite St. John of the Cross, and he offers the contemplative experience as an answer to the irreligion and barbarism of our times. ?For those...curious about mysticism...this is an excellent book? (Catholic World).
New English versions of Lysistrata, The Frogs, The Birds, and Ladies' Day. "Thanks to Dudley Fitts...we can appreciate Aristophanes' vigor, his robust style, his scorching wit, his earthy humor, his devotion to honesty and his poetic imagination" (Brooks Atkinson, New York Times). Index.
The final volume of Teilhard's collected essays, containing two texts of key importance published for the first time: "The Heart of Matter" and "The Christic." Foreword by N. M. Wildiers; Index. Translated by René Hague. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
This volume includes the aviator's letters to friends, autobiographical fragments, and meditations. Translated by Norah Purcell; Introduction by Anne Morrow Lindbergh; Index.
From the authors of the phenomenal bestseller Protein Power comes a quick, easy-to-follow low-carb diet plan designed to get you on the fastest possible track to losing weight, feeling fantastic, and improving your health. If you've heard all the recent publicity about how low-carb eating can turn your health around--by keeping your insulin levels down and getting your excess weight off--but don't want to wade through hundreds of pages of explanation or complicated formulas before you get started, The 30-Day Low-Carb Diet Solution is for you. Unlike any other low-carb diet book in the market, this book gives you low-carb 101: the basics of low-carb eating without all the fuss. In this much-needed book, two of the most trusted names in low-carb dieting who have helped millions of readers lose weight provide the simplest possible diet designed for the best possible results. Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades give you the step-by-step basics-what to eat, what to avoid--and even provide specific low-carb meal plans to guide you at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for a full month. For those who would rather design their own meals, they include expert advice for easily creating a customized plan based on your current weight, health status, and goals. They show you the exact portions of carbohydrate-rich foods you can enjoy now to reach those goals and how to increase those amounts to maintain your health and weight for the long haul. Simply by knowing your height, weight, and gender, you can quickly determine how much protein to eat for optimal health-no complicated measurements, charts, or formulas to follow. The Drs. Eades include everything you need to get started now: self-assessment quizzes to help you effortlessly tailor your program to fit your needs, fill-in worksheets for planning meals and tracking your progress, and other important nutritional information for easy reference. By following the simple but highly effective and powerful diet in The 30-Day Low-Carb Diet Solution, complete with 30 days of meal plans and more than 100 delicious and easy recipes, you'll be on your way to a thinner and healthier you in just a month!
The revolutionary cookbook that satisfies all your comfort food cravings-from the New York Times bestselling authors of Protein Power When you think about low-carb diets, do you picture complicated meal plans and bland foods that leave you with cravings? Do the words comfort food make you long for scrumptious delights like pancakes, ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, or fettucine alfredo-foods you thought you could never have on a low-carb diet? If your answers to the above were yes and yes, you're in for a huge surprise! You can have these foods and many more, thanks to The Low-Carb Comfort Food Cookbook. Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades and chef Ursula Solom give you unique, easy cooking tips and more than 300 yummy low-carb recipes for foods that help you keep your weight down and fulfill your cravings. In no time at all, you'll be on an easy-to-follow low-carb plan that will allow you to stay thin and healthy-and feel great! Southern fried chicken with pan gravy * Elegant biscuits Melt-in-your-mouth pancakes * Deluxe low-carb macaroni and cheese * Beef and mushroom crepes * Spicy corn chips Soft crust pizza * Low-carb beef stroganoff * Raisin rolls Breaded sole * Fettucine alfredo * Low-carb lasagna * Super banana bread * Low-carb tacos * Bean and cheese burritos * Best garlic bread * Eggplant parmigiana * Rich low-carb pound cake * Scrumptious low-carb cheesecake * Apple brown betty * Cheddar cheese waffles * Chocolate ice cream * Key lime pie * Sublime truffles
"Marshall has the essential novelist's gift, the creation of vivid characters," said the New York Times. In her new novel, she has again created a cast both real and vibrant. At sixty-three, Judge Gregory Brennan is on the brink of retirement. With his youngest daughter headed for college, he envisions traveling abroad, basking in a repose that his demanding career has not allowed, with his wife, Audrey, at his side. But Audrey has other ambitions. At forty-nine, she sees the mythic empty nest as an opportunity to explore her own potential - as a medical student. When Audrey reveals her plans, Gregory is overwhelmed, and he emotionally retreats, causing a rift that neither one of them ever anticipated. Marshall has been praised for her insight into the complexities of modern marriage, capturing it as "an institution about competing needs and shifting wants" (Baltimore Sun). In The Court of Common Pleas, marriage is not unlike the general trial court where Gregory presides. But the ruling in Gregory and Audrey's own case remains to be seen. Can their disparate life plans be mediated and their differences reconciled? Marshall offers a nuanced portrait of a marriage in the throes of a midlife crisis and reveals, with an encompassing kindness, the tenderness, frustration, bewilderment, and ultimately the joy of a marriage willed to endure.
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