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books tagged “essays”
books tagged “essays”
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The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Presentby Phillip Lopate, Teachers & Writers CollaborativeISBN 038542339X (0-385-42339-X)
Softcover, Anchor Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present'Book summary:For more than four hundred years, the personal essay has been one of the richest and most vibrant of all literary forms. Distinguished from the detached formal essay by its friendly, conversational tone, its loose structure, and its drive toward candor and self-disclosure, the personal essay seizes on the minutiae of daily life-vanities, fashions, foibles, oddballs, seasonal rituals, love and disappointment, the pleasures of solitude, reading, taking a walk -- to offer insight into the human condition and the great social and political issues of the day. The Art of the Personal Essay is the first anthology to celebrate this fertile genre. By presenting more than seventy-five personal essays, including influential forerunners from ancient Greece, Rome, and the Far East, masterpieces from the dawn of the personal essay in the sixteenth century, and a wealth of the finest personal essays from the last four centuries, editor Phillip Lopate, himself an acclaimed essayist, displays the tradition of the personal essay in all its historical grandeur, depth, and diversity. [via]
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Assassination Vacationby Sarah VowellISBN 074326004X (0-7432-6004-X)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Assassination Vacation'Book summary:A New York Times Bestseller
Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, she visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood. The resulting narrative is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture. [via]
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Barrel Feverby David SedarisISBN 0316779423 (0-316-77942-3)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Barrel Fever'Book summary:A collection of stories and essays by humorist and NPR commentator David Sedaris based upon his own experiences and the hidden perversity that can be found in Anytown, U.S.A. Here are images and blasphemies that nice people don't dare look at--blatantly exposed and told with the clear, casual voice of intimate knowledge. Sedaris' humor is born of compassion and his tales range from the sharing of cheery Christmas letters featuring infanticide, to experiences of the Gay and Famous (Charlton Heston and Elizabeth Dole, for example), to the lives of siblings named Hope, Faith, Charity and Adolph and to alcoholics and chain smokers you can laugh with. [via]
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A Collection of Essaysby George OrwellISBN 0156186004 (0-15-618600-4)
Softcover, Harvest Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Collection of Essays'Book summary:Imagine any of today's writers of "creative nonfiction" dispatching a rogue elephant before an audience of several thousand. Now, imagine the essay that would result. Can we say "narcissism"? As part of the Imperial Police in Burma, George Orwell actually found himself aiming the gun, and his record--first published in 1936--comprises eight of the highest voltage pages of English prose you'll ever read. In "Shooting an Elephant," Orwell illumines the shoddy recesses of his own character, illustrates the morally corrupting nature of imperialism, and indicts you, the reader, in the creature's death, a process so vividly reported it's likely to show up in your nightmares ever after. "The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing.... Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth much more than any damn Coringhee coolie."
This essay alone would be worth the cover price, and the dozen other pieces collected here prove that, given the right thinker/writer, today's journalism actually can become tomorrow's literature. "The Art of Donald McGill," ostensibly an appreciation of the jokey, vaguely obscene illustrated postcards beloved of the working classes, uses the lens of popular culture to examine the battle lines and rules of engagement in the war of the sexes, circa 1941. "Politics and the English Language" is a prose working-out of Orwell's perceptions about the slippery relationship of word and thought that becomes a key premise of 1984. "Looking Back on the Spanish War" is as clear-eyed a veteran's memoir of the nature of war as you're likely to find, and Orwell's long ruminations on the wildly popular "good bad" writers Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling showcase his singular virtues--searing honesty and independent thinking. From English boarding schools to Gandhi's character to an early appreciation of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, these pieces give an idiosyncratic tour of the first half of the passing century in the company of an articulate and engaged guide. Don't let the idea that Orwell is an "important" writer put you off reading him. He's really too good, and too human, to miss. --Joyce Thompson [via]
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Complete Essays of Montaigneby Michel E. De MontaigneISBN 0804704864 (0-8047-0486-4)
Softcover, Stanford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Complete Essays of Montaigne'Book summary:A faithful translation is rare; a translation which preserves intact the original text is very rare; a perfect translation of Montaigne appears impossible. Yet Donald Frame has realized this feat. One does not seem to be reading a translation, so smooth and easy is the style; at each moment, one seems to be listening to Montaigne himselfthe freshness of his ideas, the unexpected choice of words. Frame has kept everything. Andre Maurois, The New York Times Book Review [via]
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Consider the Lobster: and Other Essaysby David Foster WallaceISBN 0316013323 (0-316-01332-3)
Softcover, Back Bay Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Consider the Lobster: and Other Essays'Book summary:Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of a vicious presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters. [via]
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Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denimby David SedarisISBN 0316010790 (0-316-01079-0)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dress Your Family In Corduroy And Denim'Book summary:It just isnt fair: most of us would be lucky to be able to express ourselves in writing half as well as David Sedaris does in his new book, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. But on top of his skills with the written word, the author also has substantial gifts as a performer, and he proves this on the audio version of the book. In his essay The Change in Me,Sedaris remembers that his mother was good at imitating people, and its clear that he takes after her. Whether hes doing impressions of high-voiced brother Paul, or recalling times when he and his sisters tried to win good karma by speaking and acting like well-behaved, fairytale children, Sedariss nuanced performance hits the right note on both the opening, comedic stories, and the more poignant essays that tend to come later in the reading. In fact, for those who have already read some of the best stories in other publications including The New Yorker, the CD or cassette version of this collection is probably the best bet for furthering your appreciation of the material.
Sedariss career is closely linked with two things: audio (he was discovered by NPRs Ira Glass), and the personal lives of himself and his family. In Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, he describes fights with his boyfriend, and his sister-in-laws difficult pregnancy. When sister Lisa complains about the stories involving the family, he writes about that, too. Sedaris's latest provides more evidence that he is a great humorist, memoirist and raconteur, and readers are lucky to have the opportunity to know him so well. Perhaps they are luckier still not to know him personally. --Leah Weathersby [via]
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Essaisby De MontaigneISBN 2035881978 (2-03-588197-8)
Softcover, Distribooks Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Essais'Book summary:"Lecteur, je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre" : c'est ce surprenant aveu de subjectivité qui ouvre l'un des textes les plus modernes de la littérature française, quoique l'un des plus anciens. À la mort de son ami La Boétie, Montaigne décide en effet de prendre la plume pour perpétuer leurs discussions si fécondes. Sur ce mode autobiographique, tous les sujets seront abordés, de l'amitié à l'éducation, de la philosophie à la lecture, de la religion à la mort des hommes. En s'observant lui-même, Montaigne fait ainsi le tour de l'homme, proposant une réflexion essentielle sur sa place dans le monde et sur le champ d'action de la pensée humaine.
Au siècle de Rabelais, des poètes de la Pléiade et de l'humanisme européen, l'oeuvre de Montaigne reste une météorite inclassable, entre écriture personnelle et monument philosophique. Oeuvre d'un homme engagé dans son temps, les Essais allaient fonder toute une tradition d'écriture à la française, de Pascal à Malraux, de Rousseau à Camus. --Karla Manuele [via]
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Essaysby Michel E. De Montaigne, Percival Chubb, John FlorioISBN 1591022703 (1-59102-270-3)
Softcover, Prometheus Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Essays'Book summary:Reflections by the creator of the essay form, display the humane, skeptical, humorous, and honest views of Montaigne, revealing his thoughts on sexuality, religion, cannibals, intellectuals, and other unexpected themes. Included are such celebrated works as "On Solitude," "To Philosophize Is to Learn How to Die," and "On Experience." [via]
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The Essays: A Selectionby Michel E. De Montaigne, John M. CohenISBN 0140440836 (0-14-044083-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Essays: A Selection'Book summary:Living at a time of religious strife and the decline of the intellectual optimism that had begun in the Renaissance, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592) expressed in his writings both a deep skepticism about human affairs and a wide-ranging intellectual curiosity reflective of the age. Having witnessed firsthand the bloody armed conflicts, fanaticism, and persecutions that arose out of religious differences between French Catholics and Protestant Huguenots, Montaigne was especially skeptical about human claims to knowledge. For this reason he published not systematic philosophy but mere attempts at knowledge, essays in understanding, or essais, as he called them in French. He thus inaugurated a new literary genre that proved to be very influential. Despite his skepticism, Montaigne realized that the intellectual horizon of his day was full of exciting new developments. The New World had only recently been discovered, and explorers to many parts of the hitherto undiscovered world were bringing back reports of strange lands, people, and customs. At the same time, the intellectual discoveries of the Renaissance had uncovered the powerful works of ancient Greek and Latin authors, and science, still in its infancy, was beginning to ask important new questions. The essays reflect all these interests, plus a refreshing honesty about the frailties of human nature. Montaigne writes about vanity, the value of friendship, constancy, idleness, liars, virtue, cowardice, prognostication, cannibals, the greatness of Rome, "That to Study Philosophy Is to Learn to Die," and a host of other topics. Filled with insights and keen observations that have inspired later writers as diverse as Shakespeare,Bacon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Flaubert, Virginia Woolf, and Roland Barthes, the Essays of Montaigne should be on the shelf of every student, scholar, and book lover. [via]
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Essays of E.B. Whiteby E. B. WhiteISBN 0060932236 (0-06-093223-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Essays of E.B. White'Book summary:The classic collection by one of the greatest essayists of our time. [via]
More editions of Essays of E.B. White:
- Essays of E.B. White: ISBN 0844671959 (0-8446-7195-9)
Hardcover, Peter Smith Pub Inc - Essays of E.B. White: ISBN 0060906626 (0-06-090662-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins - Essays of E.B. White: ISBN 0060145765 (0-06-014576-5)
Hardcover, Harper & Row - Essays of E.B. White: ISBN 0060932236 (0-06-093223-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins
- Essays of E.B. White: ISBN 0844671959 (0-8446-7195-9)
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The Essays of Michel De Montaigneby Michel De Montaigne, M. A. ScreechISBN 0713990724 (0-7139-9072-4)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Essays of Michel De Montaigne'Book summary:Catalog of a private collection of mostly post-archaic Chinese jade carvings, including many very fine animals and human figures. [via]
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Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Readerby Anne FadimanISBN 0374527229 (0-374-52722-9)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader'Book summary:The subtitle of Anne Fadiman's slim collection of essays is Confessions of a Common Reader, but if there is one thing Fadiman is not, it's common. In her previous work of nonfiction, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, she brought both skill and empathy to her balanced exploration of clashing cultures and medical tragedy. The subject matter here is lighter, but imbued with the same fine prose and big heart. Ex Libris is an extended love letter to language and to the wonders it performs. Fadiman is a woman who loves words; in "The Joy of Sesquipedalians" (very long words), she describes an entire family besotted with them: "When I was growing up, not only did my family walk around spouting sesquipedalians, but we viewed all forms of intellectual competition as a sacrament, a kind of holy water as it were, to be slathered on at every opportunity." From very long words it's just a short jump to literature, and Fadiman speaks joyfully of books, book collecting, and book ownership ("In my view, nineteen pounds of old books are at least nineteen times as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar"). In "Marrying Libraries" Fadiman describes the emotionally fraught task of merging her collection with her husband's: "After five years of marriage and a child, George and I finally resolved that we were ready for the more profound intimacy of library consolidation. It was unclear, however, how we were to find a meeting point between his English-garden approach and my French-garden one." Perhaps some marriages could not have stood the strain of such an ordeal, but for this one, the merging of books becomes a metaphor for the solidity of their relationship.
Over the course of 18 charming essays Fadiman ranges from the "odd shelf" ("a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection reveals a good deal about its owner") to plagiarism ("the more I've read about plagiarism, the more I've come to think that literature is one big recycling bin") to the pleasures of reading aloud ("When you read silently, only the writer performs. When you read aloud, the performance is collaborative"). Fadiman delivers these essays with the expectation that her readers will love and appreciate good books and the power of language as much as she does. Indeed, reading Ex Libris is likely to bring up warm memories of old favorites and a powerful urge to revisit one's own "odd shelf" pronto. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Faith in Fakes: Essaysby Umberto EcoISBN 0436140888 (0-436-14088-8)
Hardcover, Secker and Warburg
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Fraudby David RakoffISBN 0767906314 (0-7679-0631-4)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fraud: Essays'Book summary:Let's get this out of the way: David Rakoff is not David Sedaris. When you hear him being incredibly smart and funny on This American Life, you invariably think, "Oh, it's David Sedaris." But if you listen closely, you can tell the difference. Rakoff, while no less witty or nasal, is a little more disappointed. In his first collection--a series of pieces for public radio and for various magazines--he positively revels in his world-weariness. Whether he's investigating the Loch Ness monster, attending a comedy festival in Aspen, Colorado, visiting a New Age retreat hosted by Steven Seagal, or just, you know, playing Freud in a department-store window at Christmastime, Rakoff tends to get comically depleted. Watching the comic Dan Castellaneta, for example, he writes, "It's a bad sign when I start counting the unused props on stage. Only two wigs, one stool, an easel, and a dropcloth to go. I begin to pray to an unfeeling God to please make Castellaneta multitask." In a piece where he attempts to climb a mountain (well... a very short hill), Rakoff immediately nips any Sierra Club fantasies in the bud: "I do not go outdoors. Not more than I have to. As far as I'm concerned, the whole point of living in New York City is indoors. You want greenery? Order the spinach." But in the end, what makes him such a terrific writer is that he's not only onto everyone else, he's onto himself. No wonder his visit to a kibbutz becomes the occasion for some supremely self-conscious amusement: "I know I sound like the Central Casting New Yorker I've turned myself into with single-minded determination when I say this, but the main problem with working in the fields is that the sun is just always shining." --Claire Dederer [via]
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Great Books of the Western Worldby Encyclopdia Britannica, inc., Robert Maynard HutchinsISBN 0852291639 (0-85229-163-9)
Hardcover, Encyclopdia Britannica
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Great Books of the Western World'Book summary:The Iliad (Ancient Greek ?????, Ilias) is, together with the Odyssey, one of two ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer, a supposedly blind Ionian poet. The epics are considered by most modern scholars to be the oldest literature in the Greek language. The Iliad concerns events during the tenth and final year in the siege of the city of Ilion, or Troy, by the Greeks. The Odyssey (Greek: ????????, Odusseia)is commonly dated circa 800 to 600 BC. The poem is, in part, a sequel to Homer's Iliad and mainly concerns the events that befall the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses) in his long journeys after the fall of Troy and when he at last returns to his native land of Ithaca. [via]
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High Tide in Tucsonby Barbara KingsolverISBN 0060927569 (0-06-092756-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'High Tide in Tucson'Book summary:The bestselling author of Animal Dreams and Pigs in Heaven brings her acclaimed voice to the essay, in a handsomely designed book. High Tide in Tucson provides readers with a reflection of Kingsolver's sensibility and creativity, as she constantly examines the urgent business of being alive. 25 line drawings. [via]
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High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Neverby Barbara Kingsolver, Paul MirochaISBN 0060172916 (0-06-017291-6)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never'Book summary:Barbara Kingsolver has entertained and touched the lives of legions of readers with her critically acclaimed and bestselling novels The Bean Trees, Animal Dreams, and Pigs in Heaven.
In these twenty-five newly conceived essays, she returns once again to her favored literary terrain to explore the themes of family, community, and the natural world. With the eyes of a scientist and the vision of a poet, Kingsolver writes about notions as diverse as modern motherhood, the history of private property, and the suspended citizenship of humans in the animal kingdom. Her canny pursuit of meaning from an inscrutable world compels us to find instructions for life in surprising places: a museum of atomic bomb relics, a West African voodoo love charm, a family of paper dolls, the ethics of a wild pig who persistently invades a garden, a battle of wills with a two-year-old, or a troop of oysters who observe high tide in the middle of Illinois.
In sharing her thoughts about the urgent business of being alive, Kingsolver the essayist employs the same keen eyes, persuasive tongue, and understanding heart that characterize her acclaimed fiction. Defiant, funny, courageously honest, High Tide in Tucson proves once again that "there is no one quite like Barbara Kingsolver in contemporary literature."--Washington Post Book World [via]
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Holidays on Iceby David SedarisISBN 0316779237 (0-316-77923-7)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Holidays on Ice'Book summary:Holidays on Ice is a collection of three previously published stories matched with three newer ones, all, of course, on a Christmas theme. David Sedaris's darkly playful humor is another common thread through the book, worming its way through "Seasons Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!" a chipper suburban Christmas letter that spirals dizzily out of control, and "Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol," a vicious theatrical review of children's Christmas pageants. As always, Sedaris's best work is his sharply observed nonfiction, notably in "Dinah, the Christmas Whore," the tale of a memorable Christmas during which the young Sedaris learns to see his family in a new light. Worth the price of the book alone is the hilarious "SantaLand Diaries," Sedaris's chronicle of his time working as an elf at Macy's, covering everything from the preliminary group lectures ("You are not a dancer. If you were a real dancer you wouldn't be here. You're an elf and you're going to wear panties like an elf.") to the perils of inter-elf flirtation. Along the way, he paints a funny and sad portrait of the way the countless parents who pass through SantaLand are too busy creating an Experience to really pay attention to their children. In a sly way, it carries a holiday message all its own. Read it aloud to the adults after the kids have gone to bed. --Ali Davis [via]
More editions of Holidays on Ice:
- Holidays on Ice: ISBN 0316779989 (0-316-77998-9)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co - Holidays on Ice: ISBN 0613674545 (0-613-67454-5)
Hardcover, Bt Bound - Holiday on Ice: ISBN 0316191299 (0-316-19129-9)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co - Holidays on Ice: ISBN 0316779237 (0-316-77923-7)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
- Holidays on Ice: ISBN 0316779989 (0-316-77998-9)
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How to Be Alone: Essaysby Jonathan FranzenISBN 0312422164 (0-312-42216-4)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'How to Be Alone: Essays'Book summary:Jonathan Franzen is smart and brash, the kind of person you want as your social critic but not as a brother-in-law. Many of the 14 essays in How to Be Alone, by the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Corrections, first appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, and elsewhere. A long, much-discussed rumination on the American novel, (newly) titled "Why Bother?," is included, as well as essays on privacy obsession, the U.S. post office, New York City, big tobacco, and new prisons. At his best, as in "My Father's Brain," a piece on his father's struggle with Alzheimer's, Franzen can make the ordinary world utterly riveting. But at times, it can be difficult to discern where Franzen stands on any particular subject, as he often takes both sides of an argument. Valid attempts to reflect ambiguity s! ometimes lead to obfuscation, especially in his essays on privacy and tobacco, although his belief that small-town America of years gone by offered the individual little privacy certainly rings true. Franzen can write with panache, as in this comment after he watched, without headphones, a TV show during a flight: "(It) became an exposé of the hydraulics of insincere smiles." A few of the shorter pieces appear to be filler. Franzen shines brightest when he gets edgy and a little angry, as in "The Reader in Exile": "Instead of Manassas battlefield, a historical theme park. Instead of organizing narratives, a map of the world as complex as the world itself. Instead of a soul, membership in a crowd. Instead of wisdom, data." --Mark Frutkin, Amazon.ca [via]
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How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essaysby Umberto Eco, William Weaver, Diane SterlingISBN 015600125X (0-15-600125-X)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays'Book summary:By the author of "The Name of the Rose", this collection of essays offers advice on a wide range of unusual subjects - how to recognize a porno film, how to take an intelligent holiday, how not to talk about football, how to protect oneself from widows - as well as discussing weightier matters of history, politics, economics, literature and philosophy, in such pieces as "On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1" and "Three Owls on a Chest of Drawers". [via]
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Me Talk Pretty One Dayby David SedarisISBN 0316776963 (0-316-77696-3)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Me Talk Pretty One Day'Book summary:David Sedaris became a star autobiographer on public radio, onstage in New York, and on bestseller lists, mostly on the strength of "SantaLand Diaries," a scathing, hilarious account of his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's. (It's in two separate collections, both worth owning, Barrel Fever and the Christmas-themed Holidays on Ice.) Sedaris's caustic gift has not deserted him in his fourth book, which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path, and his move with his lover to France. Though his anarchic inclination to digress is his glory, Sedaris does have a theme in these reminiscences: the inability of humans to communicate. The title is his rendition in transliterated English of how he and his fellow students of French in Paris mangle the Gallic language. In the essay "Jesus Shaves," he and his classmates from many nations try to convey the concept of Easter to a Moroccan Muslim. "It is a party for the little boy of God," says one. "Then he be die one day on two... morsels of... lumber," says another. Sedaris muses on the disputes between his Protestant mother and his father, a Greek Orthodox guy whose Easter fell on a different day. Other essays explicate his deep kinship with his eccentric mom and absurd alienation from his IBM-exec dad: "To me, the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of his interests."
Every glimpse we get of Sedaris's family and acquaintances delivers laughs and insights. He thwarts his North Carolina speech therapist ("for whom the word pen had two syllables") by cleverly avoiding all words with s sounds, which reveal the lisp she sought to correct. His midget guitar teacher, Mister Mancini, is unaware that Sedaris doesn't share his obsession with breasts, and sings "Light My Fire" all wrong--"as if he were a Webelo scout demanding a match." As a remarkably unqualified teacher at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sedaris had his class watch soap operas and assign "guessays" on what would happen in the next day's episode.
It all adds up to the most distinctively skewed autobiography since Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia. The only possible reason not to read this book is if you'd rather hear the author's intrinsically funny speaking voice narrating his story. In that case, get Me Talk Pretty One Day on audio. --Tim Appelo [via]
More editions of Me Talk Pretty One Day:
- Me Talk Pretty One Day: ISBN 0316777722 (0-316-77772-2)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co - Me Talk Pretty One Day: ISBN 0783892799 (0-7838-9279-9)
Softcover, G K Hall & Co - Me Talk Pretty One Day: ISBN 0783892780 (0-7838-9278-0)
Hardcover, G K Hall & Co - Me Talk Pretty One Day: ISBN 0316776963 (0-316-77696-3)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
- Me Talk Pretty One Day: ISBN 0316777722 (0-316-77772-2)
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Mi vida en rose / Me Talk Pretty One Dayby David SedarisISBN 8497934903 (84-9793-490-3)
Softcover, Debolsillo
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The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essaysby Albert Camus, Justin O'BrienISBN 0679733736 (0-679-73373-6)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays'Book summary:PhilosophyReligion/Philosophy [via]
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Nakedby David SedarisISBN 1568954867 (1-56895-486-7)
Hardcover, Wheeler Pub Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Naked'Book summary:Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris. In Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview-a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics, to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertaken (of course!) with a quadriplegic companion; a family gathers for a wedding in the face of imminent death. Through it all is Sedaris's unmistakable voice, without doubt one of the freshest in American writing. [via]
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The Partly Cloudy Patriotby Sarah Vowell, Katherine StreeterISBN 0743243803 (0-7432-4380-3)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Partly Cloudy Patriot'Book summary:In "The Partly Cloudy Patriot," Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and, in doing so, investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. In this insightful and funny collection of personal stories Vowell -- widely hailed for her inimitable narratives on public radio's "This American Life" -- ponders a number of curious questions: Why is she happiest when visiting the sites of bloody struggles like Salem or Gettysburg? Why do people always inappropriately compare themselves to Rosa Parks? Why is a bad life in sunny California so much worse than a bad life anywhere else? What is it about the Zen of foul shots? And, in the title piece, why must doubt and internal arguments haunt the sleepless nights of the true patriot?
Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, themes, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German filmmakers; Tom Cruise and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer; " twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration.
The result is a teeming and engrossing book, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.
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The Polysyllabic Spreeby Nick HornbyISBN 1932416242 (1-932416-24-2)
Softcover, McSweeneys Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Polysyllabic Spree'Book summary:In his monthly column "Stuff I've Been Reading," Hornby lists the books he's purchased that month, and briefly discusses the books he's actually read.[via]
NIck Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree Includes selected passages from the novels, biographies, collections of poetry, and comics discussed in the column.More editions of The Polysyllabic Spree:
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A Room of One's Own and Three Guineasby Virginia WoolfISBN 0701128291 (0-7011-2829-1)
Hardcover, Chatto & Windus
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Room of Ones' Ownby Virginia WoolfISBN 1568493665 (1-56849-366-5)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Room of Ones' Own'Book summary:Surprisingly, this long essay about society and art and sexism is one of Woolf's most accessible works. Woolf, a major modernist writer and critic, takes us on an erudite yet conversational--and completely entertaining--walk around the history of women in writing, smoothly comparing the architecture of sentences by the likes of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, all the while lampooning the chauvinistic state of university education in the England of her day. When she concluded that to achieve their full greatness as writers women will need a solid income and a privacy, Woolf pretty much invented modern feminist criticism. [via]
More editions of Room of Ones' Own:
- Room of Ones' Own: ISBN 0156030411 (0-15-603041-1)
Softcover, Harvest Books - Room of Ones' Own: ISBN 0156787334 (0-15-678733-4)
Softcover, Harcourt - Room of Ones' Own: ISBN 0151787336 (0-15-178733-6)
Hardcover, Harcourt - Room of Ones' Own: ISBN 0521485908 (0-521-48590-8)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr - Room of Ones' Own: ISBN 0783885555 (0-7838-8555-5)
Hardcover, G K Hall & Co - Room of Ones' Own: ISBN 0848812271 (0-8488-1227-1)
Hardcover, Amereon Ltd - Room of Ones' Own: ISBN 1568493665 (1-56849-366-5)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books
- Room of Ones' Own: ISBN 0156030411 (0-15-603041-1)
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The Salmon of Doubtby Douglas AdamsISBN 1400045088 (1-4000-4508-8)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Salmon of Doubt'Book summary:On Friday, May 11, 2001, the world mourned the untimely passing of Douglas Adams, beloved creator of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, dead of a heart attack at age forty-nine. Thankfully, in addition to a magnificent literary legacywhich includes seven novels and three co-authored works of nonfictionDouglas left us something more. The book you are about to enjoy was rescued from his four computers, culled from an archive of chapters from his long-awaited novel-in-progress, as well as his short stories, speeches, articles, interviews, and letters.
In a way that none of his previous books could, The Salmon of Doubt provides the full, dazzling, laugh-out-loud experience of a journey through the galaxy as perceived by Douglas Adams. From a boys first love letter (to his favorite science fiction magazine) to the distinction of possessing a nose of heroic proportions; from climbing Kilimanjaro in a rhino costume to explaining why Americans cant make a decent cup of tea; from lyrical tributes to the sublime pleasures found in music by Procol Harum, the Beatles, and Bach to the follies of his hopeless infatuation with technology; from fantastic, fictional forays into the private life of Genghis Khan to extended visits with Dirk Gently and Zaphod Beeblebrox: this is the vista from the elevated perch of one of the tallest, funniest, most brilliant, and most penetrating social critics and thinkers of our time.
Welcome to the wonderful mind of Douglas Adams.
From the Hardcover edition. [via] -
Selected Non-Fictionsby Jorge Luis BorgesISBN 0140290117 (0-14-029011-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Selected Non-Fictions'Book summary:Jorge Luis Borges was our century's greatest miniaturist, perpetually cramming entire universes onto the head of a pin. Yet his splendid economy, along the wafer-thin proportions of such classic volumes as Ficciones and Labyrinths, has given readers the impression that Borges was miserly with his prose. In fact, he was something of a verbal spendthrift. His collected stories alone run to nearly 1,000 pages. And his nonfiction output was even more staggering: the young Borges cranked out hundreds of essays, book notes, cultural polemics, and movie reviews, and even after he lost his sight in 1955, he continued to dictate short pieces by the dozens. Eliot Weinberger has assembled just a fraction of this outpouring in Selected Non-Fictions, and the result is a 559-page Borgesian blowout, in which the Argentinean fabulist takes on being and nothingness, James Joyce and Lana Turner, and (surprisingly) racial hatred and the rise of Nazism. So much for our image of the mandarin bookworm! The very engagé author of this book seems more like a subequatorial Camus, with a dash of Siskel and Ebert on the side.
Selected Non-Fictions demonstrates just how quickly Borges began wrestling with such brainteasers as identity, time, and infinity. Indeed, the very first piece in the collection, "The Nothingness of Personality" (1922), already finds him fiddling with the self: "I, as I write this, am only a certainty that seeks out the words that are most apt to compel your attention. That proposition and a few muscular sensations, and the sight of the limpid branches that the trees place outside my window, constitute my current I." There are many such meditations here, including "A History of Eternity" (in which Borges maps out his own, disarmingly empty version of the eternal, "without a God or even a co-proprietor, and entirely devoid of archetypes"). But it's more fun--and more revelatory--to see the author venturing beyond his metaphysical stomping grounds. Borges on King Kong is a hoot, and a cornball masterpiece such as The Petrified Forest elicits this terrific nugget: "Death works in this film like hypnosis or alcohol: it brings the recesses of the soul into the light of day." His capsule biographies are a delight, his critiques of Nazi propaganda are memorably stringent, and nobody should miss him on the tango. True, the sheer variety and mind-boggling erudition of Selected Non-Fictions can be a little forbidding. But, taken as a whole, the collection surely meets the specifications that Borges laid out in a 1927 essay on literary pleasure: "If only some eternal book existed, primed for our enjoyment and whims, no less inventive in the populous morning as in the secluded night, oriented toward all hours of the world." Oh, but it does. --James Marcus [via]
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Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifestoby Chuck KlostermanISBN 0743236017 (0-7432-3601-7)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto'Book summary:There's quite a bit of intelligent analysis and thought-provoking insight packed into the pages of Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, which is a little surprising considering how darn stupid most of Klosterman's subject matter actually is. Klosterman, one of the few members of the so-called "Generation X" to proudly embrace that label and the stereotypical image of disaffected slackers that often accompanies it, takes the reader on a witty and highly entertaining tour through portions of pop culture not usually subjected to analysis and presents his thoughts on Saved by the Bell, Billy Joel, amateur porn, MTV's The Real World, and much more. It would be easy in dealing with such subject matter to simply pile on some undergraduate level deconstruction, make a few jokes, and have yourself a clever little book. But Klosterman goes deeper than that, often employing his own life spent as a member of the lowbrow target demographic to measure the cultural impact of his subjects. While the book never quite lives up to the use of the word "manifesto" in the title (it's really more of a survey mixed with elements of memoir), there is much here to entertain and illuminate, particularly passages on the psychoses and motivations of breakfast cereal mascots, the difference between Celtic fans and Laker fans, and The Empire Strikes Back. Sections on a Guns n' Roses tribute band, The Sims, and soccer feel more like magazine pieces included to fill space than part of a cohesive whole. But when you're talking about a book based on a section of cultural history so reliant on a lack of attention span, even the incongruities feel somehow appropriate. --John Moe [via]
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Slouching Towards Bethlehemby Joan DidionISBN 0374521727 (0-374-52172-7)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem'Book summary:Upon its publication in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem confirmed Joan Didion as one of the most prominent writers on the literary scene. Her unblinking vision and deadpan tone have influenced subsequent generations of reporters and essayists, changing our expectations of style, voice, and the artistic possibilities of nonfiction.
"In her portraits of people," The New York Times Book Review wrote, "Didion is not out to expose but to understand, and she shows us actors and millionaires, doomed brides and naïve acid-trippers, left-wing ideologues and snobs of the Hawaiian aristocracy in a way that makes them neither villainous nor glamorous, but alive and botched and often mournfully beautiful. . . . A rare display of some of the best prose written today in this country."
In essay after essay, Didion captures the dislocation of the 1960s, the disorientation of a country shredding itself apart with social change. Her essays not only describe the subject at hand--the murderous housewife, the little girl trailing the rock group, the millionaire bunkered in his mansion--but also offer a broader vision of America, one that is both terrifying and tender, ominous and uniquely her own.
Joyce Carol Oates has written, "Joan Didion is one of the very few writers of our time who approaches her terrible subject with absolute seriousness, with fear and humility and awe. Her powerful irony is often sorrowful rather than clever. . . . She has been an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time, a memorable voice, partly eulogistic, partly despairing; always in control." [via]More editions of Slouching Towards Bethlehem:
- Slouching Toward Bethlehem: ISBN 0440080274 (0-440-08027-4)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group - Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ISBN 0671248065 (0-671-24806-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster - Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ISBN 0671667378 (0-671-66737-8)
Softcover, Pocket Books - Slouching Towards Bethlehem : Essays: ISBN 0679640266 (0-679-64026-6)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ISBN 0374521727 (0-374-52172-7)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
- Slouching Toward Bethlehem: ISBN 0440080274 (0-440-08027-4)
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Small Wonderby Barbara Kingsolver, Paul MirochaISBN 1410400913 (1-4104-0091-3)
Softcover, Walker Large Print
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Small Wonder'Book summary:Readers familiar with Barbara Kingsolver will find that Small Wonder, a collection of 23 essays, shows the same sensitivity and thoughtfulness, the same rich knowledge of and love for the natural world, as her spellbinding novels. In "Knowing Our Place," she describes the two places in which she writes: a tin-roof cabin in Appalachia and her home in the Tucson desert. In "Setting Free the Crabs," she uses her daughter's decision not to take home a beautiful (and occupied) red conch shell from a Mexican beach to illustrate our own need to give up our sense of ownership of the earth, to resist "the hunger to possess all things bright and beautiful." Many of these pieces, like the lovely title essay, were written (or rewritten) in response to the events of September 11, which threw into relief the growing social and economic inequities that are so little remarked on in the American media. These are political essays, although Kingsolver is not a natural rhetorician; her prose is too supple and inclusive. She is more inclined to follow the turns of her mind, like water in a curving stream bed, than to hammer home a point or two. But she has a rare gift for apt allusion (from sources as wide-ranging as Robert Frost to Beanie Babies) and for the elegant use of facts and figures. And she is highly quotable. It is easy to imagine the speechwriters and activists of the next 10 years dipping into Small Wonder for inspiration and the perfect phrase. --Regina Marler [via]
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A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Againby David Foster WallaceISBN 0316925284 (0-316-92528-4)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again'Book summary:David Foster Wallace made quite a splash in 1996 with his massive novel, Infinite Jest. Now he's back with a collection of essays entitled A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. In addition to a razor-sharp writing style, Wallace has a mercurial mind that lights on many subjects. His seven essays travel from a state fair in Illinois to a cruise ship in the Caribbean, explore how television affects literature and what makes film auteur David Lynch tick, and deconstruct deconstructionism and find the intersection between tornadoes and tennis.
These eclectic interests are enhanced by an eye (and nose) for detail: "I have seen sucrose beaches and water a very bright blue. I have seen an all-red leisure suit with flared lapels. I have smelled what suntan lotion smells like spread over 21,000 pounds of hot flesh . . ." It's evident that Wallace revels in both the life of the mind and the peculiarities of his fellows; in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again he celebrates both. [via]
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Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New Worldby Sarah VowellISBN 0743205405 (0-7432-0540-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World'Book summary:"Take the Cannoli" is a moving and wickedly funny collection of personal stories stretching across the immense landscape of the American scene. Hailed by "Newsweek" as a "cranky stylist with talent to burn," Vowell has an irresistible voice -- caustic and sympathetic, insightful and double-edged -- that has attracted a loyal following for her magazine writing and radio monologues on This American Life.
While tackling subjects such as identity, politics, religion, art, and history, these autobiographical tales are written with a biting humor, placing Vowell solidly in the tradition of Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker. Vowell searches the streets of Hoboken for traces of the town's favorite son, Frank Sinatra. She goes under cover of heavy makeup in an investigation of goth culture, blasts cannonballs into a hillside on a father-daughter outing, and maps her family's haunted history on a road trip down the Trail of Tears.
"Take the Cannoli" is an eclectic tour of the New World, a collection of alternately hilarious and heartbreaking essays and autobiographical yarns. [via]
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Travels in Hyperreality: Essaysby Umberto EcoISBN 0156913216 (0-15-691321-6)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Travels in Hyperreality: Essays'Book summary:Eco displays in these essays the same wit, learning, and lively intelligence that delighted readers of The Name of the Rose and Foucaults Pendulum. His range is wide, and his insights are acute, frequently ironic, and often downright funny. Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book[via]More editions of Travels in Hyperreality: Essays:
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Walden And Civil Disobedienceby Henry David Thoreau, Jonathan LevinISBN 1593082088 (1-59308-208-8)
Softcover, Barnes & Noble
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Walden And Civil Disobedience'Book summary:[via]Walden and Civil Disobedience, by Henry David Thoreau, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:- New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
- Biographies of the authors
- Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
- Footnotes and endnotes
- Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
- Comments by other famous authors
- Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
- Bibliographies for further reading
- Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate
Henry David Thoreau was a sturdy individualist and a lover of nature. In March, 1845, he built himself a wooden hut on the edge of Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts, where he lived until September 1847. Walden is Thoreaus autobiograophical account of his Robinson Crusoe existence, bare of creature comforts but rich in contemplation of the wonders of nature and the ways of man. On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience is the classic protest against government's interference with individual liberty, and is considered one of the most famous essays ever written. This newly repackaged edition also includes a selection of Thoreau's poetry.Jonathan Levin is Dean of the School of Humanities and Professor of Literature and Culture at SUNY-Purchase. His research interests include nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature and culture, modernism and modernity, and environmental studies. He is the author of The Poetics of Transition: Emerson, Pragmatism, and American Literary Modernism, as well as numerous essays and reviews.
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Wampeters Foma and Granfalloonsby Kurt VonnegutISBN 0385294220 (0-385-29422-0)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wampeters Foma and Granfalloons'Book summary:The bestselling author of Hocus Pocus offers a rare glimpse into his magic world, as he presents this indignant, outrageous, always witty, and deeply-felt collection of his reviews, essays, and speeches. "Vonnegut at his unnerving best."--Providence Bulletin. Reissue. [via]
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Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions)by Kurt VonnegutISBN 0385333811 (0-385-33381-1)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions)'Book summary:The bestselling author of Hocus Pocus offers a rare glimpse into his magic world, as he presents this indignant, outrageous, always witty, and deeply-felt collection of his reviews, essays, and speeches. "Vonnegut at his unnerving best."--Providence Bulletin. Reissue. [via]
More editions of Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions):
- Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions): ISBN 022401076X (0-224-01076-X)
Hardcover, Cape - Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions): ISBN 0440087171 (0-440-08717-1)
Hardcover, Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence - Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions): ISBN 0385333811 (0-385-33381-1)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
- Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions): ISBN 022401076X (0-224-01076-X)
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The White Albumby Joan DidionISBN 0374522219 (0-374-52221-9)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The White Album'Book summary:This collection of essays recounts what took place on the long morning after the 1960s, when everyone was coming down from their particular bad trip. Didion observes the dramas that explode as America goes into collective detox: the mother abandoning her five-year-old daughter on the central reservation of Interstate 5; Huey Newton and the Black Panthers preaching from their cells; students, in unconscious parody, simulating the disaffection of the 1960s. Didion hangs out with the Doors, parties with Janis Joplin, shops with the Manson clan, dines with Polanski and Sharon Tate, and goes to biker movies, "because there on the screen was some news I was not getting from the 'New York Times'". Joan Didion has also written "Sentimental Journeys" and "Slouching Towards Bethlehem". [via]
Spanish
Algo supuestamente divertido que nunca volvere a hacerby Not AvailableISBN 9685957207 (968-5957-20-7)
Softcover, Random House Mondadori
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Algo supuestamente divertido que nunca volvere a hacer'More editions of Algo supuestamente divertido que nunca volvere a hacer:
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Ensayos Completos/ Complete Essaysby Michel De MontaigneISBN 843762035X (84-376-2035-X)
Hardcover, Catedra Ediciones
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Una Habitacion Propiaby Virginia WoolfISBN 843221521X (84-322-1521-X)
Softcover, Planeta Pub Corp
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French
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Essaisby Michel De Montaigne, Benedicte Boudou, Denis Bjai, Jean CeardISBN 2253132721 (2-253-13272-1)
Hardcover, Livre de poche
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Essais'Book summary:"Lecteur, je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre" : c'est ce surprenant aveu de subjectivité qui ouvre l'un des textes les plus modernes de la littérature française, quoique l'un des plus anciens. À la mort de son ami La Boétie, Montaigne décide en effet de prendre la plume pour perpétuer leurs discussions si fécondes. Sur ce mode autobiographique, tous les sujets seront abordés, de l'amitié à l'éducation, de la philosophie à la lecture, de la religion à la mort des hommes. En s'observant lui-même, Montaigne fait ainsi le tour de l'homme, proposant une réflexion essentielle sur sa place dans le monde et sur le champ d'action de la pensée humaine.
Au siècle de Rabelais, des poètes de la Pléiade et de l'humanisme européen, l'oeuvre de Montaigne reste une météorite inclassable, entre écriture personnelle et monument philosophique. Oeuvre d'un homme engagé dans son temps, les Essais allaient fonder toute une tradition d'écriture à la française, de Pascal à Malraux, de Rousseau à Camus. --Karla Manuele [via]
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Je Parler Francaisby David Sedaris, Georges MonnyISBN 2290319740 (2-290-31974-0)
Softcover, J Ai Lu Editions
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Je Parler Francais'Book summary:317pages. poche. broché. [via]
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