| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
books tagged “society”
books tagged “society”
›› Find signed collectible books by ''
-
The Ambassadorsby Henry James, Christopher ButlerISBN 0192836471 (0-19-283647-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ambassadors'Book summary:The second of James's three late masterpieces, was, in its author's opinion, "the best, all round, of my productions".
Lambert Strether, a mild middle-aged American of no particular achievements, is dispatched to Paris from the manufacturing empire of Woollett, Massachusetts. The mission conferred on him by his august patron, Mrs. Newsome, is to discover what, or who, is keeping her son Chad in the notorious city of pleasure, and to bring him home. But Strether finds Chad transformed by the influence of a remarkable woman; and as the Parisian spring advances, he himself succumbs to the allure of the 'vast bright Babylon' and to the mysterious charm of Madame de Vionnet. [via]More editions of The Ambassadors:
-
The Architecture of Happinessby Alain De BottonISBN 0241142490 (0-241-14249-0)
Softcover, Hamish Hamilton an imprint of Penguin Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Architecture of Happiness'Book summary:ARCHITECTURE , Buildings , Style. [via]
-
Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Societyby Fatima MernissiISBN 0253204232 (0-253-20423-2)
Softcover, Indiana Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Society'Book summary:"Required reading... " Elizabeth Fernea, The University of Texas at Austin
"If a reader were to select only one book in order to gain insight into women's status and prospects in Islamic society, this study should be the one chosen for its clarity, honesty, depth of knowledge and thought-provoking qualities." Arab Book World
In this expanded and updated edition, with a new introduction on Muslim women and fundamentalism, Mernissi argues that Islamic fundamentalism is in part a defense against recent changes in sex roles and perceptions of sexual identity.
[via]More editions of Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Society:
-
Candideby Francois M. VoltaireISBN 0198323727 (0-19-832372-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Candide'Book summary:[via]In this new translation of Voltaires Candide, distinguished translator Burton Raffel captures the French novels irreverent spirit and offers a vivid, contemporary version of the 250-year-old text. Raffel casts the novel in an English idiom that--had Voltaire been a twenty-first-century American--he might himself have employed. The translation is immediate and unencumbered, and for the first time makes Voltaire the satirist a wicked pleasure for English-speaking readers.
Candide recounts the fantastically improbable travels, adventures, and misfortunes of the young Candide, his beloved Cunégonde, and his devoutly optimistic tutor, Pangloss. Endowed at the start with good fortune and every prospect for happiness and success, the characters nevertheless encounter every conceivable misfortune. Voltaires philosophical tale, in part an ironic attack on the optimistic thinking of such figures as G. W. Leibniz and Alexander Pope, has proved enormously influential over the years. In a general introduction to this volume, historian Johnson Kent Wright places Candide in the contexts of Voltaires life and work and the Age of Enlightenment. -
Candideby Daniel Gordon, Francois M. VoltaireISBN 0312148542 (0-312-14854-2)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Candide'Book summary:Candide, Voltaire's biting portrayal of eighteenth-century European society, is a central text of the Enlightenment and essential reading for history students today. Preserving the text's provocative nature, Daniel Gordon's new translation enhances Candide's read-ability and highlights the text's wit and satire for twentieth-century readers. The introduction places the work and its author in historical context, showing students how the complexities of Voltaire's life relate to the events, philosophy, and characters of Candide. A related documents section - with personal correspondence to and from Voltaire - gives students another lens through which to view this influential thinker. Helpful editorial features include explanatory notes throughout the text and a chronology of Voltaire's life. [via]
-
Candideby Burton Raffel, Francois M. VoltaireISBN 0300106556 (0-300-10655-6)
Hardcover, Yale Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Candide'Book summary:[via]In this new translation of Voltaires Candide, distinguished translator Burton Raffel captures the French novels irreverent spirit and offers a vivid, contemporary version of the 250-year-old text. Raffel casts the novel in an English idiom that--had Voltaire been a twenty-first-century American--he might himself have employed. The translation is immediate and unencumbered, and for the first time makes Voltaire the satirist a wicked pleasure for English-speaking readers.
Candide recounts the fantastically improbable travels, adventures, and misfortunes of the young Candide, his beloved Cunégonde, and his devoutly optimistic tutor, Pangloss. Endowed at the start with good fortune and every prospect for happiness and success, the characters nevertheless encounter every conceivable misfortune. Voltaires philosophical tale, in part an ironic attack on the optimistic thinking of such figures as G. W. Leibniz and Alexander Pope, has proved enormously influential over the years. In a general introduction to this volume, historian Johnson Kent Wright places Candide in the contexts of Voltaires life and work and the Age of Enlightenment.More editions of Candide:
-
The Complete Works of Oscar Wildeby Oscar Wilde, Ian Small, Russell Jackson, Bobby FongISBN 0198119607 (0-19-811960-7)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde'Book summary:This volume of Poems and Poems in Prose inaugurates the Oxford English Texts Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. It provides texts of Wilde's one-hundred and nineteen poems and poems in prose, including twenty-one never published in his lifetime, together with the publishing history of each poem, and a detailed commentary on allusions and echoes, imagery, and points of biographical interest. [via]
More editions of The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde:
-
The Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray, The 1890 and 1891 Textsby Oscar Wilde, Ian Small, Russell Jackson, Joseph BristowISBN 0198187726 (0-19-818772-6)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray, The 1890 and 1891 Texts'Book summary:This is the third volume in the Oxford English Texts edition of the works of Oscar Wilde. This definitive variorum edition of Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray reprints the thirteen-chapter and twenty-chapter versions of this famous story as separate works. The volume provides readers with the most detailed account available of the considerable changes that Wilde made to a controversial narrative that appeared in two, very different editions in 1890 and 1891 respectively. [via]
More editions of The Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray, The 1890 and 1891 Texts:
Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athensby James DavidsonISBN 0312185596 (0-312-18559-6)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens'More editions of Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens:
-
Culture and Society, 1780-1950by Raymond WilliamsISBN 0231057016 (0-231-05701-6)
Softcover, Columbia Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Culture and Society, 1780-1950'Book summary:Acknowledged as perhaps the masterpiece of materialist criticism in the English language, this omnibus ranges over British literary history from George Eliot to George Orwell to inquire about the complex ways economic reality shapes the imagination.
[via]More editions of Culture and Society, 1780-1950:
-
Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Societyby David Sloan WilsonISBN 0226901351 (0-226-90135-1)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society'Book summary:God or evolution? Though the debate about our origins has swirled in epic controversy since Darwin's time, David Sloan Wilson bravely blends these two contentious theories. This has been tried before, of course, mainly by religious intellectuals. What makes Darwin's Cathedral stand out is that Wilson does not pursue the classic "intelligent design" argument (evolution is God's hand at work), but instead argues that religion is evolution at work.
Wilson sees religion as a complex organism with "biological" functions. He argues that the social cohesiveness of religion makes it analogous to a beehive or a human body--and, in fact, religious believers sometimes employ these metaphors. He writes, "Thinking of a religious group as like an organism encourages us to look for adaptive complexity.... Mechanisms are required that are often awesome in their sophistication." To Wilson, therein lies the astonishing complexity of religion, just as in the biological world.
Following Wilson's argument requires understanding the rudiments of evolutionary biology; a smattering of theology, history, anthropology, sociology, and psychology is helpful, too. But the reasoning isn't as challenging as Wilson warns in the introduction. For educated readers, it's an accessible book.
In just 260 pages, Wilson can't begin to do justice to the broad swath of intellectual work he's cut out for himself. And ultimately, the book's main failing is its simplicity. In addition, his approach to religion is so clearly an outsider's that he is unlikely to win many converts. Adaptive-mechanistic explanations of forgiveness and altruism may be intriguing to the atheist in the ivory tower, but they are likely to elicit little more than a bemused and passing interest from believers. --Eric de Place [via]
More editions of Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society:
-
Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life In Elizabethan Londonby Liza PicardISBN 0312325665 (0-312-32566-5)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life In Elizabethan London'Book summary:Liza Picard's Elizabeth's London completes a trilogy of books on London throughout history, starting with Restoration London and followed by Dr Johnson's London. From the outset, Picard admits that Elizabethan London proved an even greater challenge to reconstruct, as "few buildings survive", and "artefacts and clothes from the time are rare". Nevertheless, through painstaking detail, Picard wonderfully recreates the crowded chaotic sights and smells of everyday life in late 16th-century London.
Her journey starts, like so many admirers of the city from Chaucer to Ackroyd, on the river Thames, "a uniform opaque grey" in Elizabeth's time, but "fairly unpolluted, judging from all the fish in it," and "a superb processional route between the royal palaces." From here Picard surveys London life, from its main streets, its water supply and its civic buildings of timber and stone, to the houses, people, clothes, food, drink and entertainment that defined one of the most prosperous cities in 16th-century Europe.
Everything is told in all its raw, sensual detail, from the ways in which "the butcher's professional skills" were used to disembowel those unfortunate enough to be convicted of capital offences, to the cost of pins for dressmaking--one shilling and eight pence per thousand. At times, the sheer detail of Picard's book can be overwhelming, and there is no specific argument that unites her observations, but the sheer scale of information is extremely impressive. -Jerry Brotton [via]
More editions of Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life In Elizabethan London:
- Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life In Elizabethan London: ISBN 0312325657 (0-312-32565-7)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr - Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life In Elizabethan London: ISBN 0297607294 (0-297-60729-4)
Hardcover, Weidenfeld & Nicolson - Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life In Elizabethan London: ISBN 0312325665 (0-312-32566-5)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
- Elizabeth's London: Everyday Life In Elizabethan London: ISBN 0312325657 (0-312-32565-7)
-
Evelinaby Fanny Burney, Kristina StraubISBN 0312097298 (0-312-09729-8)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Evelina'Book summary:This edition reprints the text of Burney's classic novel together with a broad selection of documents on life in eighteenth-century England that have been carefully chosen to put the work in its historical and cultural context. Special attention is given to eighteenth-century conduct literature, including Burney's own reactions to her society's codes of behavior for the young lady. In addition, the documents include first hand descriptions of fashionable English society at the end of the eighteenth century from observers both inside and ouside of its folds as well as materials on the often violent underside of the British trade and military expansion that helped construct the fashionable world Burney's heroine enters. A general introduction providing historical and culural background, a chronology of Burney's life and times, introductions to each thematic group of documents, headnotes, extensive annotations, a selected bibligraphy, and a generous selection of maps and illustations make this volume a definitive scholarly edition of this classic work of eighteenth-century literature.[via] 
Evelina or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the Worldby Edward A. Bloom, Frances Burney, Vivien JonesISBN 0192840312 (0-19-284031-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Evelina or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World'More editions of Evelina or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World:
-
Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Marketsby Robert KuttnerISBN 0226465551 (0-226-46555-1)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets'Book summary:Everything For Sale is an erudite reprieve from the deluge of books written in praise of free markets. Robert Kuttner fires back with a book that documents relevant, real-world examples of market failure and makes the case for intelligent intervention to attain more desirable outcomes. His exhaustive litany of successful (some, even cherished) government interventions in the market--from National Public Radio to the Internet--creates a persuasive case for a mixed program of political and market-based approaches in the shaping of public policy. When Kuttner pushes his argument for a culture with less commercial emphasis, his preferences exhibit an anti-market bias. But overall, his argument is clear and compelling, exposing blind adherence to market outcomes as largely arbitrary, ideological, and often, an affront to democracy. Academic economists who ignore the political desires of the people in order to protect the purity of their mathematical models draw Kuttner's fire in particular. He writes about ideas and economic details with great verve and ability. Kuttner's book is certain to be a touchstone of debate, if not reform, among public policy makers. [via]
More editions of Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets:
-
The Female Eunuchby Germaine GreerISBN 0261632086 (0-261-63208-6)
Hardcover, MacGibbon & Kee
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Female Eunuch'Book summary:Available alongside five other Modern Classics first published by Flamingo in the 1970s, this is a re-issue of Germaine's Greer's feminist classic. Translated into many languages, "The Female Eunuch" is a landmark in the history of the women's movement. Drawing liberally from history, literature and popular culture, past and present, Germaine Greer's searing examination of women's oppression is at once an important social commentary and a passionately argued piece of polemic. [via]
More editions of The Female Eunuch:
-
French Lieutenant's Womanby John FowlesISBN 0316291161 (0-316-29116-1)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'French Lieutenant's Woman'Book summary:The story of a woman wronged, set against a backdrop of an unrelenting Victorian England. [via]
The Hand Of Ethelbertaby Thomas HardyISBN 0312357362 (0-312-35736-2)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hand Of Ethelberta'More editions of The Hand Of Ethelberta:
-
A Handful of Dustby Evelyn WaughISBN 0316926051 (0-316-92605-1)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Handful of Dust'Book summary:"All over England people were waking up, queasy and despondent."
Few writers have walked the line between farce and tragedy as nimbly as Evelyn Waugh, who employed the conventions of the comic novel to chip away at the already crumbling English class system. His 1934 novel, A Handful of Dust, is a sublime example of his bleak satirical style: a mordantly funny exposé of aristocratic decadence and ennui in England between the wars.
Tony Last is an aristocrat whose attachment to an ideal feudal past is so profound that he is blind to his wife Brenda's boredom with the stately rhythms of country life. While he earnestly plays the lord of the manor in his ghastly Victorian Gothic pile, she sets herself up in a London flat and pursues an affair with the social-climbing idler John Beaver. In the first half of the novel Waugh fearlessly anatomizes the lifestyles of the rich and shameless. Everyone moves through an endless cycle of parties and country-house weekends, being scrupulously polite in public and utterly horrid in private. Sex is something one does to relieve the boredom, and Brenda's affair provides a welcome subject for conversation:
It had been an autumn of very sparse and meagre romance; only the most obvious people had parted or come together, and Brenda was filling a want long felt by those whose simple, vicarious pleasure it was to discuss the subject in bed over the telephone.
Tony's indifference and Brenda's selfishness give their relationship a sort of equilibrium until tragedy forces them to face facts. The collapse of their relationship accelerates, and in the famous final section of the book Tony seeks solace in a foolhardy search for El Dorado, throwing himself on the mercy of a jungle only slightly more savage than the one he leaves behind in England. For all its biting wit, A Handful of Dust paints a bleak picture of the English upper classes, reaching beyond satire toward a very modern sense of despair. In Waugh's world, culture, breeding, and the trappings of civilization only provide more subtle means of destruction. --Simon Leake [via] -
The Heart of Darknessby Joseph Conrad, Ross C. MurfinISBN 0312114915 (0-312-11491-5)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Heart of Darkness'Book summary:[via]Written several years after Conrad's grueling sojourn in the Belgian Congo, the novel tells the story of Marlow, a seaman who undertakes his own journey into the African jungle to find the tormented white trader Kurtz.
-
Heart of Darknessby Ross C. Murfin, Joseph ConradISBN 0312007612 (0-312-00761-2)
Softcover, Palgrave Macmillan
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Heart of Darkness'Book summary:If asked to describe the way in which the study of literature is changing, most of us willing to venture an answer would say that it is becoming more theortical. Without some kind of theoretical underpinning, literary criticism runs the riskof being impressionistic, even illogical [via]
More editions of Heart of Darkness:
Ideas and Opinionsby Albert Einstein, Carl SeeligISBN 0285647245 (0-285-64724-5)
Hardcover, Souvenir Press
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Ideas and Opinions'More editions of Ideas and Opinions:
-
Jane Eyreby Charlotte Bronte, Margaret Smith, Sally ShuttleworthISBN 0192839659 (0-19-283965-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Jane Eyre'Book summary:Adopted at more than 1,000 colleges and universities, Bedford/St. Martin's innovative Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism series has introduced more than a quarter of a million students to literary theory and earned enthusiastic praise nationwide. Along with an authoritative text of a major literary work, each volume presents critical essays, selected or prepared especially for students, that approach the work from several contemporary critical perspectives, such as gender criticism and cultural studies. Each essay is accompanied by an introduction (with bibliography) to the history, principles, and practice of its critical perspective. Every volume also surveys the biographical, historical, and critical contexts of the literary work and concludes with a glossary of critical terms. New editions reprint cultural documents that contextualize the literary works and feature essays that show how critical perspectives can be combined.[via]More editions of Jane Eyre:
-
Jane Eyreby Heather GlenISBN 0312165803 (0-312-16580-3)
Hardcover, Palgrave Macmillan
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Jane Eyre'Book summary:Romantic melodrama or feminist classic, Jane Eyre is one of the most enduringly popular and compelling novels in the literary canon. Overlooked or dismissed by critics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it first began to attract serious critical attention in the 1970s as New Critical, formalist and feminist critics began to re-evaluate Charlotte Bronte's achievement. This New Casebook brings together essays by leading scholars over the past twenty years, mapping Jane Eyre's progress through the literary and theoretical establishment and encouraging the student to consider these different critical approaches and how they shape the novel and our reading of it. [via]
More editions of Jane Eyre:
-
Jane Eyreby Margaret Smith, Charlotte Bronte, Jane JackISBN 0198114907 (0-19-811490-7)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Jane Eyre'Book summary:"Jane Eyre," Charlotte Brontë's most beloved novel, describes the passionate love between the courageous orphan Jane Eyre and the brilliant, brooding, and domineering Rochester. The loneliness and cruelty of Jane Eyre's childhood strengthens her natural independence and spirit, which prove invaluable when she takes a position as a governess at Thornfield Hall. But after she falls in love with her sardonic employer, her discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a heart-wrenching choice. Ever since its publication in 1847, "Jane Eyre" has enthralled every kind of reader, from the most critical and cultivated to the youngest and most unabashedly romantic. "Jane Eyre" lives as one of the great triumphs of storytelling and as a moving and unforgettable portrayal of a woman's quest for self-respect. "At the end we are steeped through and through with the genius, the vehemence, the indignation of Charlotte Brontë." -Virginia Woolf [via]
More editions of Jane Eyre:
-
Jane Eyreby UnkISBN 0194216322 (0-19-421632-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Jane Eyre'Book summary:This book is intended for Prizes won etc. [via]
More editions of Jane Eyre:
Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Societyby Raymond WilliamsISBN 0195204697 (0-19-520469-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society'Book summary:Now revised to include new words and updated essays, Keywords focuses on the sociology of language, demonstrating how the key words we use to understand our society take on new meanings and how these changes reflect the political bent and values of society. [via]
More editions of Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society:
Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologiesby Ben ShneidermanISBN 0262692996 (0-262-69299-6)
Softcover, Mit Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies'Book summary:2003 IEEE-USAB Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering Public Understanding of the Profession. and Selected as a Finalist in the category of Computer/Internet in the 2002 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs) presented by Independent Publisher Magazine
Ben Shneiderman's book dramatically raises computer users' expectations of what they should get from technology. He opens their eyes to new possibilities and invites them to think freshly about future technology. He challenges developers to build products that better support human needs and that are usable at any bandwidth. Shneiderman proposes Leonardo da Vinci as an inspirational muse for the "new computing." He wonders how Leonardo would use a laptop and what applications he would create.
Shneiderman shifts the focus from what computers can do to what users can do. A key transformation is to what he calls "universal usability," enabling participation by young and old, novice and expert, able and disabled. This transformation would empower those yearning for literacy or coping with their limitations. Shneiderman proposes new computing applications in education, medicine, business, and government. He envisions a World Wide Med that delivers secure patient histories in local languages at any emergency room and thriving million-person communities for e-commerce and e-government. Raising larger questions about human relationships and society, he explores the computer's potential to support creativity, consensus-seeking, and conflict resolution. Each chapter ends with a Skeptic's Corner that challenges assumptions about trust, privacy, and digital divides. [via]More editions of Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies:
Life and Death of the Mayor of Casterbridgeby Thomas HardyISBN 0312523270 (0-312-52327-0)
Hardcover, Palgrave Macmillan
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Life and Death of the Mayor of Casterbridge'More editions of Life and Death of the Mayor of Casterbridge:
-
Little Womenby Louisa May AlcottISBN 0195852710 (0-19-585271-0)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Little Women'Book summary:Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy manage to lead interesting lives despite Father's absence at war and the family's lack of money. Whether they're putting on a play or forming a secret society, their gaiety is infectious. Written from Louisa May Alcott's own experiences, this remarkable novel has been treasured for generations. [via]
More editions of Little Women:
- Little Women: ISBN 0307122131 (0-307-12213-1)
Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books - Little Women: ISBN 0307171167 (0-307-17116-7)
Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books - Little Women: ISBN 030767116X (0-307-67116-X)
Hardcover, Goldencraft - Little Women: ISBN 0195852710 (0-19-585271-0)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
- Little Women: ISBN 0307122131 (0-307-12213-1)
-
Little Women, Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amyby Louisa May AlcottISBN 0316031054 (0-316-03105-4)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Little Women, Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy'Book summary:Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy manage to lead interesting lives despite Father's absence at war and the family's lack of money. Whether they're putting on a play or forming a secret society, their gaiety is infectious. Written from Louisa May Alcott's own experiences, this remarkable novel has been treasured for generations. [via]
More editions of Little Women, Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy:
- Little Women, Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy: ISBN 0316030902 (0-316-03090-2)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co - Little Women, Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy: ISBN 0316031070 (0-316-03107-0)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co - Little Women, Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy: ISBN 0316031054 (0-316-03105-4)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
- Little Women, Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy: ISBN 0316030902 (0-316-03090-2)
The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Characterby David RiesmanISBN 0300001932 (0-300-00193-2)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character'More editions of The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character:
-
The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Characterby Nathan Glazer, David Riesman, Reuel Denney, Todd GitlinISBN 0300088655 (0-300-08865-5)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character'Book summary:The Lonely Crowd is considered by many to be the most influential book of the twentieth century. Its now-classic analysis of the "new middle class" in terms of inner-directed and other-directed social character opened exciting new dimensions in our understanding of the psychological, political, and economic problems that confront the individual in contemporary American society. The 1969 abridged and revised edition of the book is now reissued with a new foreword by Todd Gitlin that explains why the book is still relevant to our own era. [via]
More editions of The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character:
-
The Mayor of Casterbridgeby Thomas Hardy, Dale Kramer, Pamela DalzielISBN 0192840711 (0-19-284071-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mayor of Casterbridge'Book summary:Thomas Hardy spent much of his youth in the historical town of Dorchester, and it is to these familiar surroundings that he turns for the setting of this novel. This edition is the first critically established text of The Mayor of Casterbridge, based on a detailed study of the manuscript and of Hardy's revised printed versions. [via]
More editions of The Mayor of Casterbridge:
- The Mayor of Casterbridge: ISBN 019283441X (0-19-283441-X)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr - The Mayor of Casterbridge: ISBN 0195168445 (0-19-516844-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr - Mayor of Casterbridge: ISBN 0195851188 (0-19-585118-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr - The Mayor of Casterbridge: ISBN 019514810X (0-19-514810-X)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr - The Mayor of Casterbridge: ISBN 0192840711 (0-19-284071-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
- The Mayor of Casterbridge: ISBN 019283441X (0-19-283441-X)
-
Mujercitas / Little Womenby Louisa May AlcottISBN 0307349942 (0-307-34994-2)
Softcover, Random House Espanol
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Mujercitas / Little Women'Book summary:Este es un libro que raro será encontrar una mujer que no lo haya leído, sea joven o mayor. Mujercitas es más que un clásico, que ha sido llevado al cine y a la TV en más de una ocasión y que narra las aventuras de las cuatro hijas de la familia March, Meg, Jo, Beth y Amy en un soberbio retrato de la vida americana, en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, con el que tuvo tanto éxito que publica la continuación en 1869. La obra tiene tintes autobiográficos de la autora, que se basó en sus padres, sus hermanas, sus amigos de Nueva-Inglaterra y de Europa. Las cuatro hermanas realizan un aprendizaje, a veces doloroso, a veces fascinante, de la vida y del amor. Van creciendo y abandonando, una a una, el hogar familiar para casarse y crear sus propias familias. Sólo se queda Jo, que quiere ser escritora. A pesar de la sensación que tiene de que ya ha terminado su tiempo de felicidad, sigue escribiendo y consigue publicar su primera obra. [via]
More editions of Mujercitas / Little Women:
-
The Nanny Diariesby Emma McLaughlin, Nicola KrausISBN 0312291639 (0-312-29163-9)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Nanny Diaries'Book summary:The Nanny Diaries is an absolutely addictive peek into the utterly weird world of child rearing in the upper reaches of Manhattan's social strata. Cowritten by two former nannies, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, the novel follows the adventures of the aptly named Nan as she negotiates the Byzantine byways of working for Mrs. X, a Park Avenue mommy. Nan's 4-year-old charge, the hilariously named Grayer (his pals include Josephina, Christabelle, Brandford, and Darwin) is a genuinely good sort. He can't help it if his mom has scheduled him for every activity known to the Upper East Side, including ice skating, French lessons, and a Mommy and Me group largely attended by nannies. What makes the book so impossible to put down is the suspense of finding out what the unbelievably inconsiderate Mrs. X will demand of Nan next. One pictures the two authors having the last hearty laugh on their former employers. --Claire Dederer [via]
More editions of The Nanny Diaries:
- Nanny Diaries: ISBN 031237433X (0-312-37433-X)
Softcover, Griffin - Nanny Diaries: ISBN 0312948042 (0-312-94804-2)
Softcover, St Martins Pr - The Nanny Diaries: ISBN 0312983077 (0-312-98307-7)
Softcover, St Martins Pr - The Nanny Diaries: ISBN 0312988915 (0-312-98891-5)
Softcover, St Martins Pr - The Nanny Diaries : A Novel: ISBN 0312278586 (0-312-27858-6)
Hardcover, St. Martin's Press - The Nanny Diaries: ISBN 0312291639 (0-312-29163-9)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
- Nanny Diaries: ISBN 031237433X (0-312-37433-X)
-
Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, the Watsons, Sanditon: Lady Susan ; The Watsons ; Sanditonby Jane Austen, James Kinsley, Claudia L. Johnson, John N. DavieISBN 0192840827 (0-19-284082-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, the Watsons, Sanditon: Lady Susan ; The Watsons ; Sanditon'Book summary:Northanger Abbey depicts the misadventures of Catherine Morland, young, ingenuous, and mettlesome, and an indefatigable reader of gothic novels. Their romantic excess and dark overstatement feed her imagination, as tyrannical fathers and diabolical villains work their evil on forlorn heroines in isolated settings. What could be more remote from the uneventful securities of life in the midland counties of England? Yet as Austen brilliantly contrasts fiction with reality, ordinary life takes a more sinister turn, and edginess and circumspection are reaffirmed alongside comedy and literary burlesque.
Also including Austen's other short fictions, Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon, this valuable new edition shows her to be as innovative at the start of her career as at its close. [via]More editions of Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, the Watsons, Sanditon: Lady Susan ; The Watsons ; Sanditon:
-
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century Americaby Lillian FadermanISBN 0231074883 (0-231-07488-3)
Hardcover, Columbia Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America'Book summary:As Lillian Faderman writes, there are "no constants with regard to lesbianism," except that lesbians prefer women. In this groundbreaking book, she reclaims the history of lesbian life in twentieth-century America, tracing the evolution of lesbian identity and subcultures from early networks to more recent diverse lifestyles. She draws from journals, unpublished manuscripts, songs, media accounts, novels, medical literature, pop culture artifacts, and oral histories by lesbians of all ages and backgrounds, uncovering a narrative of uncommon depth and originality.
[via]More editions of Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America:
-
Our Mutual Friendby Charles Dickens, Michael CotsellISBN 0192835238 (0-19-283523-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Our Mutual Friend'Book summary:Our Mutual Friend was the last novel Charles Dickens completed and is, arguably, his darkest and most complex. The basic plot is vintage Dickens: an inheritance up for grabs, a murder, a rocky romance or two, plenty of skullduggery, and a host of unforgettable secondary characters. But in this final outing the author's heroes are more flawed, his villains more sympathetic, and the story as a whole more harrowing and less sentimental. The mood is set in the opening scene in which a riverman, Gaffer Hexam, and his daughter Lizzie troll the Thames searching for drowned men whose pockets Gaffer will rifle before turning the body over to the authorities. On this particular night Gaffer finds a corpse that is later identified as that of John Harmon, who was returning from abroad to claim a large fortune when he was apparently murdered and thrown into the river.
Harmon's death is the catalyst for everything else that happens in the novel. It seems the fortune was left to the young man on the condition that he marry a girl he'd never met, Bella Wilfer. His death, however, brings a new heir onto the scene, Nicodemus Boffin, the kind-hearted but low-born assistant to Harmon's father. Boffin and his wife adopt young Bella, who is determined to marry money, and also hire a mysterious young secretary, John Rokesmith, who takes an uncommon interest in their ward. Not content with just one plot, Dickens throws in a secondary love story featuring the riverman's daughter, Lizzie Hexam; a dissolute young upper-class lawyer, Eugene Wrayburn; and his rival, the headmaster Bradley Headstone. Dark as the novel is, Dickens is careful to leaven it with secondary characters who are as funny as they are menacing--blackmailing Silas Wegg and his accomplice Mr. Venus, the avaricious Lammles, and self-centered Charlie Hexam. Our Mutual Friend is one of Dickens's most satisfying novels, and a fitting denouement to his prolific career. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of Our Mutual Friend:
-
The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagonby Sei Shonagon, Ivan I. MorrisISBN 0231073372 (0-231-07337-2)
Softcover, Columbia Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon'Book summary:The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon is an immensely detailed account of court life in eleventh-century Japan. Written at the height of Heian culture, it is a classic text of great literary beauty, full of lively anecdotes, humorous observations, and subtle impressions. Sei Shonagon was a contemporary and erstwhile rival of Lady Murasaki, whose novel, The Tale of Genji, fictionalized the court life that Lady Shonagon captures so vividly in her diary. The Pillow Book contains her reflections on royal and religious ceremonies, nature, pilgrimage, conversation, and poetry. Lady Shonagon shares character sketches and the things she both loves and loathes. Her style is so eloquent, her wit so sharp, even the briefest fragments enchant us. There is no better introduction to the daily preoccupations of the Heian upper class, and Ivan Morris's notes and contextualization enrich the material for scholars and general readers.
[via]More editions of The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon:
-
Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generationby Chris TurnerISBN 030681448X (0-306-81448-X)
Softcover, Perseus Books Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation'Book summary:D'oh-it's "The Simpsons." And here's the book with the behind-the-scenes story of how America's favorite nuclear family first arrived at a TV near you, how the series grew into a worldwide icon, and who brings it to life so brilliantly week after week, year after year. Since first airing in 1987 as a cartoon interlude on the short-lived "Tracey Ullman Show," "The Simpsons" has deliciously skewered the foibles of American life, evolving into a cultural institution that reaches across the generations. As satire, it's sharp and funny. As a pop phenom, it's in a league of its own. And with Planet Simpson, it finally gets the sprawling, multidimensional critical look it so richly deserves. "Smart and funny, Turner writes with fitting enthusiasm for his subject while working in seemly references to cultural theory and TV-insider politics. His book is just the thing for fellow fans, and for anyone interested in how pop phenomena came to be." -Hollywood Reporter This book was not prepared, licensed, approved, or endorsed by any entity involved in creating or producing the television series "The Simpsons."[via]More editions of Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation:
The Screenplay of The French Lieutenant's Womanby John Fowles, Harold PinterISBN 022401983X (0-224-01983-X)
Hardcover, Cape
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Screenplay of The French Lieutenant's Woman'More editions of The Screenplay of The French Lieutenant's Woman:
-
The Selfish Geneby Richard DawkinsISBN 0199291152 (0-19-929115-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Selfish Gene'Book summary:Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene. Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn it around and imagine that "our" genes build and maintain us in order to make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of evolution in the same way since.
Why are there miles and miles of "unused" DNA within each of our bodies? Why should a bee give up its own chance to reproduce to help raise her sisters and brothers? With a prophet's clarity, Dawkins told us the answers from the perspective of molecules competing for limited space and resources to produce more of their own kind. Drawing fascinating examples from every field of biology, he paved the way for a serious re-evaluation of evolution. He also introduced the concept of self-reproducing ideas, or memes, which (seemingly) use humans exclusively for their propagation. If we are puppets, he says, at least we can try to understand our strings. --Rob Lightner [via]
More editions of The Selfish Gene:
- The Selfish Gene: ISBN 0192860925 (0-19-286092-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr - The Selfish Gene: ISBN 0195200004 (0-19-520000-4)
Hardcover, Oxford University Press - The Selfish Gene: ISBN 019857519X (0-19-857519-X)
Hardcover, Oxford University Press - The Selfish Gene: ISBN 0199291144 (0-19-929114-4)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr - The Selfish Gene: ISBN 0199291152 (0-19-929115-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
- The Selfish Gene: ISBN 0192860925 (0-19-286092-5)
Shameby Salman Rushdie, Salman RudhdieISBN 0312270933 (0-312-27093-3)
Softcover, Picador USA
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Shame'
Super-Cannesby James Graham BallardISBN 0312306091 (0-312-30609-1)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Super-Cannes'Book summary:JG Ballard covers familiar territory in Super-Cannes: new social structures under pressure, new psychopathologies to be explored. As he did in his previous novel Cocaine Nights, he has avoided the more abstract imagery and plot of Rushing to Paradise or The Day of Creation to create, on the surface, a more mainstream novel, clearly concerned with modern issues of racism, random violence and sexuality. But familiar territory is always the most deeply subversive place in a Ballard novel.
Eden-Olympia is more than a mere business park. It is an expensive and intense hive, the modern "Dream Palace" of "a new elite of administrators, enarques and scientific entrepreneurs"; its aim, "to turn Provence into Europe's silicon valley". Paul Sinclair finds himself with time on his hands in this radical environment when his young wife takes a job at Eden-Olympia. She replaces a doctor who killed 10 executives with a rifle before shooting himself. He left no note and no explanation. Sinclair finds himself living in the same house and learning some of the same lessons as the killer.
There are the (un)usual Ballardian motifs; the injured airman, the swimming pools, the cars, the voyeuristic sex and violence, the perverse personal iconography of the central characters (the hothouse social environment even harks back to High-Rise from 1975), but in this new context they are even more profoundly unsettling than before. The apparently slick, professional characters are flawed and ambiguous, while strange events, as in the outstanding novella Running Wild from 1988, lead to extreme conclusions. Ballard is an expert in explaining how what at first appears perverse, amoral or simply wrong, is actually obvious, sensible and sane, and then going even further. From the beginning, the clues are all there. Eventually, both Sinclair and the reader are clear on what must be done. --John Shire [via]
-
Tess of the D'Urbervillesby Thomas Hardy, John Paul RiquelmeISBN 0312106882 (0-312-10688-2)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles'Book summary:This critical edition of Thomas Hardy's widely taught 1891 British Victorian novel reprints the authoritative second impression of the 1920 Wessex edition together with critical essays that approach the work from five contemporary critical perspectives, and highly praised editorial apparatus that introduces the readers to the novel and the perspectives. The five essays illustrate cultural criticism, deconstruction, feminist and gender criticism, the new historicism, and reader-response criticism.[via]More editions of Tess of the D'Urbervilles:
- Tess of the D'Urbervilles: ISBN 0312163754 (0-312-16375-4)
Hardcover, Palgrave Macmillan - Tess of the D'Urbervilles: ISBN 0312793464 (0-312-79346-4)
Softcover, St Martins Pr - Tess of the D'Urbervilles: ISBN 0312793472 (0-312-79347-2)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr - Tess of the D'Urbervilles: ISBN 0312106882 (0-312-10688-2)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins
- Tess of the D'Urbervilles: ISBN 0312163754 (0-312-16375-4)
-
Tess Of The d'Urbervillesby Simon Gatrell, Penny Boumelha, Juliet Grindle, Thomas HardyISBN 019284069X (0-19-284069-X)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Tess Of The d'Urbervilles'Book summary:Young Tess Durbeyfield attempts to restore her family's fortunes by claiming their connection with the aristocratic d'Urbervilles. But Alec d'Urberville is a rich wastrel who seduces her and makes her life miserable. When Tess meets Angel Clare, she is offered true love and happiness, but her past catches up with her and she faces an agonizing moral choice.
Hardy's indictment of society's double standards, and his depiction of Tess as "a pure woman," caused controversy in his day and has held the imagination of readers ever since. Hardy thought it his finest novel, and Tess the most deeply felt character he ever created. This unique critical text is taken from the authoritative Clarendon edition, which is based on the manuscript collated with all Hardy's subsequent revisions. [via]More editions of Tess Of The d'Urbervilles:
Tess of the D'urbervilles: Stage 6 2,500 Headwordsby Thomas Hardy, Jennifer BassettISBN 0194230945 (0-19-423094-5)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Tess of the D'urbervilles: Stage 6 2,500 Headwords'More editions of Tess of the D'urbervilles: Stage 6 2,500 Headwords:
Tess of the D'Urbervilles: Thomas Hardyby Peter WiddowsonISBN 0312090927 (0-312-09092-7)
Hardcover, Palgrave Macmillan
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles: Thomas Hardy'More editions of Tess of the D'Urbervilles: Thomas Hardy:
-
The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedomby David BrinISBN 020132802X (0-201-32802-X)
Hardcover, Perseus Books Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom'Book summary:In New York and Baltimore, police cameras scan public areas twenty-four hours a day. Huge commercial databases track you finances and sell that information to anyone willing to pay. Host sites on the World Wide Web record every page you view, and "smart" toll roads know where you drive. Every day, new technology nibbles at our privacy.Does that make you nervous? David Brin is worried, but not just about privacy. He fears that society will overreact to these technologies by restricting the flow of information, frantically enforcing a reign of secrecy. Such measures, he warns, won't really preserve our privacy. Governments, the wealthy, criminals, and the techno-elite will still find ways to watch us. But we'll have fewer ways to watch them. We'll lose the key to a free society: accountability.The Transparent Society is a call for "reciprocal transparency." If police cameras watch us, shouldn't we be able to watch police stations? If credit bureaus sell our data, shouldn't we know who buys it? Rather than cling to an illusion of anonymity-a historical anomaly, given our origins in close-knit villages-we should focus on guarding the most important forms of privacy and preserving mutual accountability. The biggest threat to our freedom, Brin warns, is that surveillance technology will be used by too few people, now by too many.A society of glass houses may seem too fragile. Fearing technology-aided crime, governments seek to restrict online anonymity; fearing technology-aided tyranny, citizens call for encrypting all data. Brins shows how, contrary to both approaches, windows offer us much better protection than walls; after all, the strongest deterrent against snooping has always been the fear of being spotted. Furthermore, Brin argues, Western culture now encourages eccentricity-we're programmed to rebel! That gives our society a natural protection against error and wrong-doing, like a body's immune system. [via]
More editions of The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom:
-
Under the Greenwood Treeby Thomas Hardy, Simon GatrellISBN 0192835173 (0-19-283517-3)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Under the Greenwood Tree'Book summary:This edition presents a critically established text based on comparisons of every revised version. Hardy placed this tale among his Novels of Character and Environment, a group which is held to include his most characteristic work. [via]
More editions of Under the Greenwood Tree:
-
Waldenby Henry David Thoreau, Stephen FenderISBN 0192839217 (0-19-283921-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Walden'Book summary:This is the authoritative edition of an American literaru classic: Henry David Thoreau's Walden, an elegantly written record of his experiment in simple living. With this edition, Thoreau scholar Jeffrey S. Cramer has meticulously corrected errors and omissions from previous editions of Walden and here provides illuminating notes on the biographical, historical, and geographical contexts of the great nineteenth-century writer and thinker's life.Cramer's newly edited text is based on the original 1854 edition of Walden, with emendations taken from Thoreau's draft manuscripts, his own markings on the page proofs, and notes in his personal copy of the book. In the editor's notes to the volume, Cramer quotes from sources Thoreau actually read, showing how he used, interpreted, and altered these sources. Cramer also glosses Walden with references to Thoreau's essays, journals, and correspondence. With the wealth of material in this edition, readers will find an unprecedented opportunity to immerse themselves in the unique and fascinating world of Thoreau.Anyone who has read and loved Walden will want to own and treasure this gift edition. Those wishing to read Walden for the first time will not find a better guide than Jeffrey S. Cramer. [via]
-
Waldenby Henry D. Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer, Denis DonoghueISBN 0300110081 (0-300-11008-1)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Walden'Book summary:This handsome, affordable paperback edition of Walden is the most authoritative version of Henry David Thoreaus classic American literarymasterpiece to date. Jeffrey Cramers newly edited text is based on the original 1854 edition of Walden, with emendations taken from Thoreaus draft manuscripts, his own markings on page proofs, and notes in his personal copy of the book. An elegantly produced paperback, it has been priced especially with the student market in mind. An introduction by Denis Donoghue places Thoreaus life and achievement in context. Also included here are notes on the text, an afterword by the editor, and a helpful selected bibliography.[via]More editions of Walden:
-
White Teeth: Reader's Companionby Zadie SmithISBN 024113997X (0-241-13997-X)
Softcover, Hamish Hamilton
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'White Teeth: Reader's Companion'Book summary:Epic in scale and intimate in approach, White Teeth is a formidably ambitious debut. First novelist Zadie Smith takes on race, sex, class, history, and the minefield of gender politics, and such is her wit and inventiveness that these weighty subjects seem effortlessly light. She also has an impressive geographical range, guiding the reader from Jamaica to Turkey to Bangladesh and back again.
Still, the book's home base is a scrubby North London borough, where we encounter Smith's unlikely heroes: prevaricating Archie Jones and intemperate Samad Iqbal, who served together in the so-called Buggered Battalion during World War II. In the ensuing decades, both have gone forth and multiplied: Archie marries beautiful, bucktoothed Clara--who's on the run from her Jehovah's Witness mother--and fathers a daughter. Samad marries stroppy Alsana, who gives birth to twin sons. Here is multiculturalism in its most elemental form: "Children with first and last names on a direct collision course. Names that secrete within them mass exodus, cramped boats and planes, cold arrivals, medical checks."
Big questions demand boldly drawn characters. Zadie Smith's aren't heroic, just real: warm, funny, misguided, and entirely familiar. Reading their conversations is like eavesdropping. Even a simple exchange between Alsana and Clara about their pregnancies has a comical ring of truth: "A woman has to have the private things--a husband needn't be involved in body business, in a lady's... parts." And the men, of course, have their own involvement in bodily functions:
The deal was this: on January 1, 1980, like a New Year dieter who gives up cheese on the condition that he can have chocolate, Samad gave up masturbation so that he might drink. It was a deal, a business proposition, that he had made with God: Samad being the party of the first part, God being the sleeping partner. And since that day Samad had enjoyed relative spiritual peace and many a frothy Guinness with Archibald Jones; he had even developed the habit of taking his last gulp looking up at the sky like a Christian, thinking: I'm basically a good man.
Not all of White Teeth is so amusingly carnal. The mixed blessings of assimilation, for example, are an ongoing torture for Samad as he watches his sons grow up. "They have both lost their way," he grumbles. "Strayed so far from what I had intended for them. No doubt they will both marry white women called Sheila and put me in an early grave." These classic immigrant fears--of dilution and disappearance--are no laughing matter. But in the end, they're exactly what gives White Teeth its lasting power and undeniable bite. --Eithne Farry [via]More editions of White Teeth: Reader's Companion:
Results page: PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 NEXT
![[powered by Muze Inc.]](http://i.bookfinder.com/images/site/muze/powered_by_muze.gif){kind=small}