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From "Abalone" to "Zooxanthellae," Jeffrey Yang's debut poetry collection An Aquarium is full of the exhilarating colors and ominous forms of aquatic life. But deeper under the surface are his observations on war, environmental degradation, language, and history, as a father-troubled by violence and human mismanagement of the world-offers advice to a newborn son.
Ever since his first book, Simple Cooking, and its acclaimed successors, Outlaw Cook, Serious Pig, and Pot on the Fire, John Thorne has been hailed as one of the most provocative, passionate, and accessible food writers at work today. In Mouth Wide Open, his fifth collection, he has prepared a feast for the senses and intellect, charting a cook's journey from ingredient to dish in illuminating essays that delve into the intimate pleasures of pistachios, the Scottish burr of real marmalade, how the Greeks made a Greek salad, the (hidden) allure of salt anchovies, and exploring the uncharted territory of improvised breakfasts and resolutely idiosyncratic midnight snacks. Most of all, his inimitable warmth, humor, and generosity of spirit inspire us to begin our own journey of discovery in the kitchen and in the age-old comfort and delight of preparing food.
A spirited chronicle of the West's ambivalent relationship with dirt The question of cleanliness is one every age and culture has answered with confidence. For the first-century Roman, being clean meant a two-hour soak in baths of various temperatures, scraping the body with a miniature rake, and a final application of oil. For the aristocratic Frenchman in the seventeenth century, it meant changing your shirt once a day and perhaps going so far as to dip your hands in some water. Did Napoleon know something we didn't when he wrote Josephine "I will return in five days. Stop washing"? And why is the German term Warmduscher-a man who washes in warm or hot water-invariably a slight against his masculinity? Katherine Ashenburg takes on such fascinating questions as these in Dirt on Clean, her charming tour of attitudes to hygiene through time.What could be more routine than taking up soap and water and washing yourself? And yet cleanliness, or the lack of it, is intimately connected to ideas as large as spirituality and sexuality, and historical events that include plagues, the Civil War, and the discovery of germs. An engrossing fusion of erudition and anecdote, Dirt on Clean considers the bizarre prescriptions of history's doctors, the hygienic peccadilloes of great authors, and the historic twists and turns that have brought us to a place Ashenburg considers hedonistic yet oversanitized.
Howard Garis, creator of the famed Uncle Wiggily series, along with his wife, Lilian, were phenomenally productive writers of popular children's series-including The Bobbsey Twins and Tom Swift-from the turn of the century to the 1950s. In a large, romantic house in Amherst, Massachusetts, Leslie Garis, her two brothers, and their parents and grandparents aimed to live a life that mirrored the idyllic world the elder Garises created nonstop. But inside The Dell-where Robert Frost often sat in conversation over sherry, and stories appeared to spring from the very air-all was not right.Roger Garis's inability to match his parents' success in his own work as playwright, novelist, and magazine writer led to his conviction that he was a failure as father, husband, and son, and eventually deepened into mental illness characterized by raging mood swings, drug abuse, and bouts of debilitating and destructive depression. House of Happy Endings is Leslie Garis's mesmerizing, tender, and harrowing account of coming of age in a wildly imaginative, loving, but fatally wounded family.
House of Mist stands as one of the first South American novels written in the style that was later called magical realism. Of this story of a young bride struggling with her marriage to an aloof landowner-and the mysteries surrounding their life together-in a house deep in the lush Chilean woods, Penelope Mesic wrote in the Chicago Tribune that Bombal showed "bold disregard for simple realism in favor of a heightened reality in which the external world reflects the internal truth of the characters' feeling . . . mingling . . . fantasy, memory and event.""One of the most outstanding representations of the avant-garde in Latin America." -Women Writers of Spanish America
Dollars, dolors. Callings and contrivances. King Zulu. Comus.Sephardic ju-ju and verses. Voodoo mojo, Special Forces.Henry formed a group named Professor Longhair and hisShuffling Hungarians. After so much renunciationAnd invention, is this the image of the promised end?All music haunted by all the music of the dead forever.Becky haunted forever by Pearl the daughter she abandonedFor love, O try my tra-la-la, ma la belle, mah walla-woe.-from "Gulf Music"An improvised, even desperate music, yearning toward knowledge across a gulf, informs Robert Pinsky's first book of poetry since Jersey Rain (2000).On the large scale of war or the personal scale of family history, in the movements of people and cultures across oceans or between eras, these poems discover connections between things seemingly disparate.Gulf Music is perhaps the most ambitious, politically impassioned, and inventive book by this major American poet.
"EXPAND[S] OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THIS FASCINATING LITERARY CHARACTER." -STEVEN RATINER, THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLDKnown (with Philip Larkin) as the most distinctly English of the postwar British poets, Ted Hughes was a boundlessly curious reader and translator of poetry from other languages. This generous selection of his translations at once rounds out the publication of his major work and gives us a fresh view of his poetic achievement. In 1965, Hughes, already famous in Britain, founded the journal Modern Poetry in Translation, and a number of the translations here are of poems by his contemporaries: the Israeli Yehuda Amichai, the Hungarian János Pilinszky, and the Serbian Vasko Popa. At the same time, Hughes was forever in search of older precursors, whether Homer, Lorenzo de' Medici, or the authors of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and his translations of them deepen our sense of his interest in pagan ritual and esoteric religion. These two strains of his work as translator were brought together late in his career, establishing him as one of the foremost interpreters of the classics in English.
Two brothers meet on the grounds of a private psychiatric facility. Drew, has been court-confined for observation and has called his older brother, Terry, to corroborate his claim of childhood sexual abuse by a young man from many summers ago. Drew's request releases barely-hidden animosities between the two: Is he using these repressed memories to save himself while smearing the name of his brother's friend? Through pain and acknowledged betrayal, the brothers come to grips with and begin to understand the legacy of abuse, both inside and outside their family home. In a Dark, Dark House is the latest work from Neil LaBute, American theater's great agent provocateur. The play will have its world Premiere in May 2007, Off Broadway at New York's MCC Theater.
The Penitent tells the story of Jospeh Shapiro, his rapid climb to prosperity, his quick plunge into promiscuity, and his subsequent flight to Israel in order to find salvation.
In this first play from the award-winning memoirist and poet Nick Flynn, four strangers meet during a blackout on a New York City sidewalk. Gideon finds himself locked out of his apartment, stranded on the street with nothing but a television and the company of three individuals, each mysterious in their own way: the specter-like Alice, ringleader of the neighborhood; Esra, a fifteen-year-old girl whose mother is MIA-again; and Ivan, a stranded businessman trying to make his way home. As Gideon makes futile attempts to break into an apartment that may or may not be his, an unsettling connection between Ivan and Esra develops while Alice and Gideon look on helplessly. Unable to make sense of their predicament, let alone alter it, the four float aimlessly in and out of seeming reality only to find themselves more lost when the electricity finally comes back on. Once again exploring the tenuous membrane that separates comfortable, everyday existence from the desperate margins of society, Flynn portrays an urban dystopia disturbingly similar to our own world while poignantly tapping into the loneliness and peril of city life.
With exclusive access to Strummer's friends, relatives, and fellow musicians, music journalist Chris Salewicz penetrates the soul of an rock 'n roll icon. The Clash was--and still is--one of the most important groups of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Indebted to rockabilly, reggae, Memphis soul, cowboy justice, and '60s protest, the overtly political band railed against war, racism, and a dead-end economy, and in the process imparted a conscience to punk. Their eponymous first record and London Calling still rank in Rolling Stone's top-ten best albums of all time, and in 2003 they were officially inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Joe Strummer was the Clash's front man, a rock-and-roll hero seen by many as the personification of outlaw integrity and street cool. The political heart of the Clash, Strummer synthesized gritty toughness and poetic sensitivity in a manner that still resonates with listeners, and his untimely death in December 2002 shook the world, further solidifying his iconic status. Salewicz was a friend to Strummer for close to three decades and has covered the Clash's career and the entire punk movement from its inception. He uses his vantage point to write Redemption Song, the definitive biography of Strummer, charting his enormous worldwide success, his bleak years in the wilderness after the Clash's bitter breakup, and his triumphant return to stardom at the end of his life. Salewicz argues for Strummer's place in a long line of protest singers that includes Woody Guthrie, John Lennon, and Bob Marley, and examines by turns Strummer's and punk's ongoing cultural influence.
Asali Solomon's characters are vivid misfits-a heathen at Jesus camp, a scheming prep-school student, a middle-aged mom pining for her salsa-dancing salad days, a scheming twentysomething virgin, a college stud in love with his weight-lifting partner, a lonely girl in love with a yellow dress. The kids in Get Down are trapped between their own good breeding and their burning desire to join the house party of sex, romance, and bad behavior that seems to be happening on some other block, down some other, more dangerous street. Get Down is, in the words of Edward P. Jones, "touching and sensitively observed . . . from the first word to the last."
This is Les Murray's first new volume of poems since Poems the Size of Photographs in 2002. In it we find Murray at his nearmiraculous best. The collection-named for a kind of house distinctive to Murray's native Australia-exhibits both his unfailing grace as a writer and his ability to write in any voice, style, or genre: there are story poems, puns extended to poem length, history-and myths in miniature, aphoristic fragments, and domestic portraits. As ever, Murray's evocation of the natural world is unparalleled in its inventiveness and virtuosity. The Biplane Houses is ardent, eloquent, enchanting poetry.
Confidentiality has become a weapon in the White House's war on the press, a war fought with the unwitting complicity of the press itself. Norman Pearlstine takes us behind the scenes of one of the most controversial courtroom dramas of our time. When Pearlstine-as editor in chief of Time Inc.-agreed to give prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald a reporter's notes of a conversation with a "confidential source," he was vilified for betraying the freedom of the press. But Pearlstine shows that "Plamegate" was not the clear case it seemed to be. In his "vigorously written" inside story (The Washington Post), Pearlstine daringly challenges the conventional wisdom that freedom of the press is an absolute.
It was the day before Independence Day, 1833. As his bride, Lucie, was about to be sold down the river, Thornton Blackburn planned a daring-and successful-daylight escape from their Louisville masters. Pursued to Michigan, the couple was captured and sentenced to return to Kentucky in chains. But Detroit's black community rallied to their cause in the Blackburn Riots of 1833, the first racial uprising in the city's history. Thornton and Lucie were spirited across the river to Canada, but their safety proved illusory when Michigan's governor demanded their extradition. Canada's defense of the Blackburns set the tone for all future diplomatic relations with the United States over the thorny issue of the fugitive slave, and confirmed the British colony as the main terminus of the Underground Railroad. The Blackburns settled in Toronto, where they founded the city's first taxi business, but they never forgot the millions who still suffered in slavery. Working with prominent abolitionists, Thornton and Lucie made their home a haven for runaways. When they died in the 1890s with no descendants to pass on their fascinating tale, it was lost to history. Lost, that is, until archaeologists brought the story of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn again to light.
First published in 1981, Leonard Michaels's The Men's Club is a scathing, pitying, absurdly dark and funny novel about manhood in the age of therapy. "The climax is fitting, horrific, and wonderfully droll" (The New York Times Book Review). Seven men, friends and strangers, gather in a house in Berkeley. They intend to start a men's club, the purpose of which isn't immediately clear to any of them; but very quickly they discover a powerful and passionate desire to talk.
In his shocking and revelatory new work, the celebrated journalist William Langewiesche investigates the burgeoning global threat of nuclear weapons production. The Atomic Bazaar is the story of the inexorable drift of nuclear weapons technology from the hands of the rich into the hands of the poor. As more unstable and undeveloped nations find ways of acquiring the ultimate arms, the stakes of state-sponsored nuclear activity have soared to frightening heights. Even more disturbing is the likelihood of such weapons being manufactured and deployed by guerrilla non-state terrorists.Langewiesche also recounts the recent history of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist at the forefront of nuclear development and trade in the Middle East who masterminded the theft and sale of centrifuge designs that helped to build Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, and who single-handedly peddled nuclear plans to North Korea, Iran, and other potentially hostile countries. He then examines in dramatic and tangible detail the chances for nuclear terrorism.From Hiroshima to the present day, Langewiesche describes a reality of urgent consequence to us all. This searing, provocative, and timely report is a triumph of investigative journalism, and a masterful laying out of the most critical political problem the world now faces.
For contemporary women, motherhood has become as polarizing a proposition as it is a powerful calling. For some women this tension is manifest in a debate over whether or not to have children. For others it concerns whether to stay at home with their children or stay in the workforce. Still others feel abandoned altogether by the supposedly pro-family and pro-mother social justice movement that is feminism and are at a loss when it comes to reconciling their maternal instincts with their political beliefs. With Opting In, Amy Richards addresses the anxiety over parenting that women face today in a book that mixes memoir, interviews, historical analysis, and feminist insight. In her refreshingly direct and thoughtful approach, Richards covers everything from the truth about our biological clocks and the trends toward extending fertility, to parenting with nature and nurturing in mind, to our relationship with our own mothers, to what feminism's relationship to motherhood is and always has been. Speaking from the vantage point of someone who is both a parent and one of our leading feminist activists, Richards cuts through the cacophony of voices intent on telling women the "appropriate" way to be a mother and reveals instead how to confidently forge your own path while staying true to yourself and your ideals.
God's Ear marks the debut of Jenny Schwartz, "an indelibly clever playwright, possessed of linguistic playfulness and a lively sense of rhythm" (Alexis Soloski, The Village Voice). Through the skillfully disarming use of clichéd language and homilies, the play explores with subtle grace and depth the way the death of a child tears one family apart, while showcasing the talents of a promising young playwright who "in [a] very modern way [is] making a rather old-fashioned case for the power of the written word" (Jason Zinoman, The New York Times). Fresh from its critically acclaimed off-off-Broadway run this past spring, God's Ear moves off-Broadway to the Vineyard Theatre in April 2008.
This groundbreaking anthology will serve as the standard for years to come. Editor Michael Hofmann has assembled brilliant translations of the major German poets, from Rilke and Brecht to Durs Grunbein and Jan Wagner, in an approachable, readable, and endlessly interesting collection. Here we find poetry as a living counter-force to socio-political reality; poetry of dissent and fear and protest; poetry of private griefs and musics. From the subtlety and elegance of Brecht, to the extraordinary jargon-glooms of Gottfried Benn, to the oblique and straightforward responses to the country's villainous history, to the bitter, cleansed, and haunted poetry of the postwar years, the anthology ends with a reunified country looking at itself and its neighbors in new ways. This is an essential and timely collection of verse from a tumultuous, violent, tragic, and hopeful century, written in the language of those who were at the heart of the matter.
How Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq Made The Commander In Chief and Foretell the Future of AmericaThis is a story of ever-expanding presidential powers in an age of unwinnable wars. Harry Truman and Korea, Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam, George W. Bush and Iraq: three presidents, three ever broader interpretations of the commander in chief clause of the Constitution, three unwinnable wars, and three presidential secrets. Award-winning presidential biographer and military historian Geoffrey Perret places these men and events in the larger context of the post-World War II world to establish their collective legacy: a presidency so powerful it undermines the checks and balances built into the Constitution, thereby creating a permanent threat to the Constitution itself.In choosing to fight in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, Truman, Johnson, and Bush alike took counsel of their fears, ignored the advice of the professional military and major allies, and were influenced by facts kept from public view. Convinced that an ever-more powerful commander in chief was the key to victory, they misread the moment. Since World War II wars have become tests of stamina rather than strength, and more likely than not they sow the seeds of future wars. Yet recent American presidents have chosen to place their country in the forefront of fighting them. In the course of doing so, however, they gave away the secret of American power-for all its might, the United States can be defeated by chaos and anarchy.
In these selections from twenty years of her best short fiction, Edna O'Brien's A Fanatic Heart pulls the reader into a woman's experience. Her stories portray a young Irish girl's view of obsessive love and its often wrenching pain, while tales of contemporary life show women who open themselves to sexuality, to disappointment, to madness. Throughout, there is always O'Brien's voice-wondrous, despairing, moving-examining passionate subjects that lay bare the desire and needs that can be hidden in a woman's heart.
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