books tagged “Anthology”

Introduction by William Carlos Williams. [via]

Contents: Artists and models. The veiled woman. Elena. Subjects: Erotic stories, American. [via]

Setting: England and Scotland, 1667 and 1816

Sensuality rating: 7

A titillating twist on the May-December romance, this offering from four popular authors, including New York Times bestsellers Jo Beverley and Cathy Maxwell, explores the reawakening of romance in women of experience, delivered in the delightful form of virile younger men. Cathy Maxwell's "A Man Who Can Dance" introduces readers to Graham McNab, a man standing on the cusp of achieving his lifelong dream of becoming a physician. However, fate intervenes in the form of woman--a gorgeous, flaxen-haired woman. Graham will do anything to make the vision his own, even if it means entering into a bet with his nasty cousin Blair. To win the bet, Graham must rely on his best friend, governess Sarah Ambrose to teach the untutored doctor to dance, in spite of his two left feet. Close proximity and the rhythm of the dance emulate the rhythm of love for Sarah and Graham. Will they become partners for life? Lauren Royal introduces readers to widow Clarice Bradford, who is devoted to raising her young daughter, Mary. Clarice is not looking for love when she is invited to attend a local wedding, but the ardent attentions of a younger man, Sir Cameron Leslie, make Clarice wonder just how thoroughly on the shelf she is or if there is a possibility of "Forevermore" in her future. "Written in the Stars" by Jaclyn Reding pits two lovers against an ancient prophesy. Harriet Drynan must marry a younger man to ensure the survival of her clan. But she's in love with her twin brother's best friend, Tristan Carmichael, and he loves her. Harriet fears the legend's curse that proclaims if she marries Tristan, he will die before the marriage can be consummated. A little leap year magic may bring the answer to our star-crossed lovers' prayers. "The Demon's Mistress" by Jo Beverley opens with a bang--almost. Maria Celestin, known by society as the Golden Lily, a beautiful widow just out of mourning, arrives just in time to stop George, Lord Vandeimen, from taking the coward's way out from under his debts and crumbling estate. Her proposition, that Van act as her affianced for six weeks in exchange for enough money to pay off his creditors and make the most urgent repairs to his home, intrigues him, as does the lady herself. Van suspects that Maria has an ulterior motive for approaching him, but he's willing to deliver whatever her heart desires. And her heart desires Van. From four of today's most popular romantic authors, In Praise of Younger Men is praiseworthy itself. --Alison Trinkle [via]

One of the great innovative figures in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daringly new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature. Leaves Of Grass is his one book.  First published in 1855 with only twelve poems, it was greeted by Ralph Waldo Emerson as "the wonderful gift . . . the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed."  Over the course of Whitman's life, the book reappeared in many versions, expanded and transformed as the author's experiences and the nation's history changed and grew.  Whitman's ambition was to creates something uniquely American.  In that he succeeded.  His poems have been woven into the very fabric of the American character.  From his solemn masterpieces "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" and "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" to the joyous freedom of "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," and "Song of the Open Road," Whitman's work lives on, an inspiration to the poets of later generations. [via]

The More Than Complete Hitchhikers Guide Douglas Adams [via]

Here comes Santa Claus with four stories that celebrate the joy of holiday love and cheer! Stories and authors include "Promises to Keep" by Victoria Alexander, "The Naughty Santa" by Sandra Hill, "Santa Reads Romance" by Dara Joy, and "A Gift for Santa" by Nelle McFather. [via]

March 1978 Bantam Books 12th printing mass market paperback, different cover than shown. Tight spine, great covers, clear, crisp pages, no spine creases. Fiction [via]

Sherlock Holmes
The Complete Novels and Stories

Volume I

Since his first appearance in Beetons Christmas Annual in 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes has been one of the most beloved fictional characters ever created. Now, in two paperback volumes, Bantam presents all fifty-six short stories and four novels featuring Conan Doyles classic hero--a truly complete collection of Sherlock Holmess adventures in crime!

Volume I includes the early novel A Study in Scarlet, which introduced the eccentric genius of Sherlock Holmes to the world. This baffling murder mystery, with the cryptic word Rache written in blood, first brought Holmes together with Dr. John Watson. Next, The Sign of Four presents Holmess famous seven percent solution and the strange puzzle of Mary Morstan in the quintessential locked-room mystery.

Also included are Holmess feats of extraordinary detection in such famous cases as the chilling  The Adventure of the Speckled Band, the baffling riddle of The Musgrave Ritual, and the ingeniously plotted The Five Orange Pips, tales that bring to life a Victorian England of horse-drawn cabs, fogs, and the famous lodgings at 221B Baker Street, where Sherlock Holmes earned his undisputed reputation as the greatest fictional detective of all time. [via]

The young Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from repeated nightmares of living a double life, in which by day he worked as a respectable doctor and by night he roamed the back alleys of old-town Edinburgh. In three days of furious writing, he produced a story about his dream existence. His wife found it too gruesome, so he promptly burned the manuscript. In another three days, he wrote it again. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published as a "shilling shocker" in 1886, and became an instant classic. In the first six months, 40,000 copies were sold. Queen Victoria read it. Sermons and editorials were written about it. When Stevenson and his family visited America a year later, they were mobbed by reporters at the dock in New York City. Compulsively readable from its opening pages, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is still one of the best tales ever written about the divided self.

This University of Nebraska Press edition is a small, exquisitely produced paperback. The book design, based on the original first edition of 1886, includes wide margins, decorative capitals on the title page and first page of each chapter, and a clean, readable font that is 19th-century in style. Joyce Carol Oates contributes a foreword in which she calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a "mythopoetic figure" like Frankenstein, Dracula, and Alice in Wonderland, and compares Stevenson's creation to doubled selves in the works of Plato, Poe, Wilde, and Dickens.

This edition also features 12 full-page wood engravings by renowned illustrator Barry Moser. Moser is a skillful reader and interpreter as well as artist, and his afterword to the book, in which he explains the process by which he chose a self-portrait motif for the suite of engravings, is fascinating. For the image of Edward Hyde, he writes, "I went so far as to have my dentist fit me out with a carefully sculpted prosthetic of evil-looking teeth. But in the final moments I had to abandon the idea as being inappropriate. It was more important to stay in keeping with the text and, like Stevenson, not show Hyde's face." (Also recommended: the edition of Frankenstein illustrated by Barry Moser) --Fiona Webster [via]

"The most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed." - Ralph Waldo Emerson. Inspired by transcendentalism, Whitman's immortal collection includes some of the greatest poems of modern times, including his masterpiece "Song of Myself." Shattering standard conventions of symbolism and allegory, it stands as an unabashed celebration of body and nature. [via]

This all-new Signet Classic contains many of T.S. Eliot's most important early poems, leading to perhaps his greatest masterpiece, The Waste land, which has long been regarded as one of the fundamental texts of modernism. By combining poetic elements from many diverse sources with bits of popular culture and common speech linked in a fragmented narrative, Eliot recreated the chaos and disillusionment of Europe in the aftermath of WWI. The Waste Land is a modernist literary masterpiece. Contains a number of early poems, including Spleen, The Death of St. Narcissus, The Love Song of J. Prufrock, Preludes, Gerontion, The Hippopotmaus, and Sweeny Among the Nightingales. T.S. Eliot is the winner of the 1948 Nobel Prize for Literature, and is one of America's greatest poets. Edited and with an Introduction by Helen Vendler, a foremost scholar of moderism at Harvard University who writes regularly for the New Yorker and The New Republic. Vendler is also the author of books on other essential poets, including W.B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, John Keats, George Herbert, and the forthcoming The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnete. @DeadFlowers Note From Ezra Pound: Maybe cut 75%? From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less [via]

After sitting through T.S. Eliot's reading of "The Waste Land," listeners may be inclined to hang up the earphones for a spell. There are no flaws to Eliot's steady-toned interpretation; in fact, his delivery is quite remarkable in its ability to match the poem's constant, somber mood. It's just that 25-plus minutes of Eliot's desolate landscapes--rendered even more real by the author's incessant tones--can wear on the emotions.

In addition to the full-length version of "The Waste Land," this recording includes Eliot's stirring narration of "The Hollow Men," "Sweeney Among the Nightingales," and "Macavity the Mystery Cat." Listen to Eliot read from "The Waste Land." Visit our audio help page for more information. (Running time: 47 minutes, 1 cassette) --Rob McDonald [via]

A Woman's Liberation seems to promise explicitly feminist stories, but with one exception, that is not what you get. In sociopolitical terms, there isn't much in A Woman's Liberation that would discomfort the white, suburban, American middle class, and that's something that will discomfort many feminists.

The collection may be mainstream in its feminism and, usually, its sociocultural assumptions, but that does not mean the stories are comforting--quite the opposite. In "Inertia," Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon Award winner Nancy Kress takes a disturbing look at a concentration camp for disease sufferers in a repressive, decaying America. In the Nebula and Hugo Award winner "Even the Queen," Connie Willis deftly dissects mother-daughter relationships and satirically skewers a naive, doctrinaire feminist; this story represents an impressive but little-noted feminist accomplishment: Mrs. Willis placed a story blatantly about menstruation in Asimov's SF. Multi-award-winner Pat Murphy's "Rachel in Love" is guaranteed to disturb readers: when a young woman, Rachel, dies in an accident, her mind is downloaded into a chimpanzee's body, creating a mixed human-ape consciousness, and Rachel is torn between love for a man and love for a chimpanzee. The title story, Ursula K. Le Guin's impressive novella "A Woman's Liberation," is the book's most overtly feminist work; a multilayered, perceptive examination of politics (of several sorts) and freedom, it follows a woman's journey from slavery to liberty across two planets.

The anthology's subtitle, A Choice of Futures by and About Women, describes the contents perfectly: stories written by women about strong, intelligent female lead characters, set in the present and the future, on Earth and on distant planets. A Woman's Liberation is a superior collection of modern SF stories accompanied by an insightful introduction. --Cynthia Ward [via]