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books tagged “society”
books tagged “society”
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The Amber Spyglassby Philip PullmanISBN 0345413377 (0-345-41337-7)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Amber Spyglass'Book summary:From the very start of its very first scene, The Amber Spyglass will set hearts fluttering and minds racing. All we'll say here is that we immediately discover who captured Lyra at the end of The Subtle Knife, though we've yet to discern whether this individual's intent is good, evil, or somewhere in between. We also learn that Will still possesses the blade that allows him to cut between worlds, and has been joined by two winged companions who are determined to escort him to Lord Asriel's mountain redoubt. The boy, however, has only one goal in mind--to rescue his friend and return to her the alethiometer, an instrument that has revealed so much to her and to readers of The Golden Compass and its follow-up. Within a short time, too, we get to experience the "tingle of the starlight" on Serafina Pekkala's skin as she seeks out a famished Iorek Byrnison and enlists him in Lord Asriel's crusade:
A complex web of thoughts was weaving itself in the bear king's mind, with more strands in it than hunger and satisfaction. There was the memory of the little girl Lyra, whom he had named Silvertongue, and whom he had last seen crossing the fragile snow bridge across a crevasse in his own island of Svalbard. Then there was the agitation among the witches, the rumors of pacts and alliances and war; and then there was the surpassingly strange fact of this new world itself, and the witch's insistence that there were many more such worlds, and that the fate of them all hung somehow on the fate of the child.
Meanwhile, two factions of the Church are vying to reach Lyra first. One is even prepared to give a priest "preemptive absolution" should he succeed in committing mortal sin. For these tyrants, killing this girl is no less than "a sacred task."In the final installment of his trilogy, Philip Pullman has set himself the highest hurdles. He must match its predecessors in terms of sheer action and originality and resolve the enigmas he already created. The good news is that there is no critical bad news--not that The Amber Spyglass doesn't contain standoffs and close calls galore. (Who would have it otherwise?) But Pullman brings his audacious revision of Paradise Lost to a conclusion that is both serene and devastating. In prose that is transparent yet lyrical and 3-D, the author weaves in and out of his principals' thoughts. He also offers up several additional worlds. In one, Dr. Mary Malone is welcomed into an apparently simple society. The environment of the mulefa (again, we'll reveal nothing more) makes them rich in consciousness while their lives possess a slow and stately rhythm. These strange creatures can, however, be very fast on their feet (or on other things entirely) when necessary. Alas, they are on the verge of dying as Dust streams out of their idyllic landscape. Will the Oxford dark-matter researcher see her way to saving them, or does this require our young heroes? And while Mary is puzzling out a cure, Will and Lyra undertake a pilgrimage to a realm devoid of all light and hope, after having been forced into the cruelest of sacrifices--or betrayals.
Throughout his galvanizing epic, Pullman sustains scenes of fierce beauty and tenderness. He also allows us a moment or two of comic respite. At one point, for instance, Lyra's mother bullies a series of ecclesiastical underlings: "The man bowed helplessly and led her away. The guard behind her blew out his cheeks with relief." Needless to say, Mrs. Coulter is as intoxicating and fluid as ever. And can it be that we will come to admire her as she plays out her desperate endgame? In this respect, as in many others, The Amber Spyglass is truly a book of revelations, moving from darkness visible to radiant truth. --Kerry Fried [via]
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Arthur Corunna's Storyby Sally MorganISBN 0316582891 (0-316-58289-1)
Softcover, Little, Brown Book Group Limited
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The Autobiography of Malcolm Xby Alex Haley, Malcolm X, M. S. HandlerISBN 0345376714 (0-345-37671-4)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X'Book summary:Malcolm X's searing memoir belongs on the small shelf of great autobiographies. The reasons are many: the blistering honesty with which he recounts his transformation from a bitter, self-destructive petty criminal into an articulate political activist, the continued relevance of his militant analysis of white racism, and his emphasis on self-respect and self-help for African Americans. And there's the vividness with which he depicts black popular culture--try as he might to criticize those lindy hops at Boston's Roseland dance hall from the perspective of his Muslim faith, he can't help but make them sound pretty wonderful. These are but a few examples. The Autobiography of Malcolm X limns an archetypal journey from ignorance and despair to knowledge and spiritual awakening. When Malcolm tells coauthor Alex Haley, "People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book," he voices the central belief underpinning every attempt to set down a personal story as an example for others. Although many believe his ethic was directly opposed to Martin Luther King Jr.'s during the civil rights struggle of the '60s, the two were not so different. Malcolm may have displayed a most un-Christian distaste for loving his enemies, but he understood with King that love of God and love of self are the necessary first steps on the road to freedom. --Wendy Smith [via]
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The Autobiography of Malcolm Xby Malcolm X, Alex HaileyISBN 0345350685 (0-345-35068-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X'Book summary:Malcolm X's searing memoir belongs on the small shelf of great autobiographies. The reasons are many: the blistering honesty with which he recounts his transformation from a bitter, self-destructive petty criminal into an articulate political activist, the continued relevance of his militant analysis of white racism, and his emphasis on self-respect and self-help for African Americans. And there's the vividness with which he depicts black popular culture--try as he might to criticize those lindy hops at Boston's Roseland dance hall from the perspective of his Muslim faith, he can't help but make them sound pretty wonderful. These are but a few examples. The Autobiography of Malcolm X limns an archetypal journey from ignorance and despair to knowledge and spiritual awakening. When Malcolm tells coauthor Alex Haley, "People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book," he voices the central belief underpinning every attempt to set down a personal story as an example for others. Although many believe his ethic was directly opposed to Martin Luther King Jr.'s during the civil rights struggle of the '60s, the two were not so different. Malcolm may have displayed a most un-Christian distaste for loving his enemies, but he understood with King that love of God and love of self are the necessary first steps on the road to freedom. --Wendy Smith [via]
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The Battle for Godby Karen ArmstrongISBN 0345391691 (0-345-39169-1)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Battle for God'Book summary:About 40 years ago popular opinion assumed that religion would become a weaker force and people would certainly become less zealous as the world became more modern and morals more relaxed. But the opposite has proven true, according to theologian and author Karen Armstrong (A History of God), who documents how fundamentalism has taken root and grown in many of the world's major religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Even Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism have developed fundamentalist factions. Reacting to a technologically driven world with liberal Western values, fundamentalists have not only increased in numbers, they have become more desperate, claims Armstrong, who points to the Oklahoma City bombing, violent anti-abortion crusades, and the assassination of President Yitzak Rabin as evidence of dangerous extremes.
Yet she also acknowledges the irony of how fundamentalism and Western materialism seem to urge each other on to greater excesses. To "prevent an escalation of the conflict, we must try and understand the pain and perception of the other side," she pleads. With her gift for clear, engaging writing and her integrity as a thorough researcher, Armstrong delivers a powerful discussion of a globally heated issue. Part history lesson, part wake-up call, and mostly a plea for healing, Armstrong's writing continues to offer a religious mirror and a cultural vision. --Gail Hudson [via]
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The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Parisby Alicia DrakeISBN 0316768014 (0-316-76801-4)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millenniumby Carl SaganISBN 0345379187 (0-345-37918-7)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium'Book summary:In the final book of his astonishing career, Carl Sagan brilliantly examines the burning questions of our lives, our world, and the universe around us. These luminous, entertaining essays travel both the vastness of the cosmos and the intimacy of the human mind, posing such fascinating questions as how did the universe originate and how will it end, and how can we meld science and compassion to meet the challenges of the coming century? Here, too, is a rare, private glimpse of Sagan's thoughts about love, death, and God as he struggled with fatal disease. Ever forward-looking and vibrant with the sparkle of his unquenchable curiosity, Billions & Billions is a testament to one of the great scientific minds of our day. [via]
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Blade Runnerby Philip K. DickISBN 0345350472 (0-345-35047-2)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Blade Runner'Book summary:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a book that most people think they remember and almost always get more or less wrong. Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner took a lot from it, and threw a lot away. Wonderful in itself, the film is a flash thriller, whereas Dick's novel is a sober meditation. As we all know, bounty hunter Rick Deckard is stalking a group of androids who have returned from space with short life spans and murder on their minds--where Scott's Deckard was Harrison Ford, Dick's is a financially strapped municipal employee with bills to pay and a depressed wife. In a world where most animals have died, and pet keeping is a social duty, he can only afford a robot imitation, unless he gets a big financial break.
The genetically warped "chickenhead" John Isidore has visions of a tomb-world where entropy has finally won. And everyone plugs in to the spiritual agony of Mercer, whose sufferings for the sins of humanity are broadcast several times a day. Prefiguring the religious obsessions of Dick's last novels, this book asks dark questions about identity and altruism. After all, is it right to kill the killers just because Mercer says so? --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britainby George MonbiotISBN 0330369431 (0-330-36943-1)
Softcover, Pan Books Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain'Book summary:If both George Monbiot's Captive State and Naomi Klein's No Logo are the two Zeitgeist books of the beginning of the 21st century, then it is good old-fashioned late-20th century capitalism that has put them there. While Klein investigates how the counter-culture has been bought out by big business, Monbiot takes a close look at how this green and pleasant isle has been delivered into unaccountable corporate control with disastrous results for local communities and for democracy itself. The project of investigating this process is vast and strewn with problems, not least that a great deal of the material Monbiot needed was not in the public domain. Thus, the book itself is the result of "stargazing on a cloudy night": an impassioned attempt to understand what stellar corporate influence is brought to bear on which governmental constellation before the clouds close over again. Depressingly, he demonstrates how New Labour has smoothly transitioned from anti-corporate opposition to big business bedfellow. Like Klein, Monbiot celebrates grassroots action, but his local heroes are more likely to be drawing up battle lines in Skye, rather than Seattle. In his evocative dealings with those at the rump end of corporate mismanagement and greed, the sense of betrayal is palpable, and Captive State can be seen as a warning shot across New Labour's bows. The devil, though, is in the details. Anonymous brown paper parcels arrive full of classified documents and Monbiot is to be applauded for bringing together a wealth of material and rendering it intelligible and intelligent, if sometimes he doesn't shy away from big theatrical deliveries, especially at the end of chapters. Ironically, it seems from reading Captive State that one of the victims of the corporate infiltration of the government is choice as well as voice. Whereas some resistance has come from consumer power--for, as Monbiot reminds us, the things that join us together are the things we are sold, he goes on to make the pertinent point that consumer power is diluted when choice is restricted to a local superstore or one hospital on the edge of town. Monbiot asks the right questions, but his answers remain elusive and caught up in a foggy democratic rhetoric that is less effective and inspiring than the tales of local activists clogging up the system that was supposed to work for them in the first place. Captive State is the first big ideas book of this decade. Let's hope it goes out of date before the next. --Fiona Buckland [via]
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The Changing Anatomy of Britainby Anthony SampsonISBN 034020964X (0-340-20964-X)
Hardcover, Hodder and Stoughton
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Children of Thunderby John BrunnerISBN 034531378X (0-345-31378-X)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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The Cloud Atlasby David MitchellISBN 0340832371 (0-340-83237-1)
Softcover, Sceptre
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cloud Atlas'Book summary:A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified 'dinery server' on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation -- the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other's echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small. In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity's dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us. [via]
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Code of the Lifemakerby James P. HoganISBN 0345309251 (0-345-30925-1)
Hardcover, Ballantine Books
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Code of the Lifemakerby James Patrick HoganISBN 0345305493 (0-345-30549-3)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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A Cup of Teaby Amy EphronISBN 0345425707 (0-345-42570-7)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Dance to the Music of Timeby Anthony PowellISBN 0316715360 (0-316-71536-0)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?by Philip K. DickISBN 0345404475 (0-345-40447-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?'Book summary:Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a book that most people think they remember and almost always get more or less wrong. Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner took a lot from it, and threw a lot away. Wonderful in itself, the film is a flash thriller, whereas Dick's novel is a sober meditation. As we all know, bounty hunter Rick Deckard is stalking a group of androids who have returned from space with short life spans and murder on their minds--where Scott's Deckard was Harrison Ford, Dick's is a financially strapped municipal employee with bills to pay and a depressed wife. In a world where most animals have died, and pet keeping is a social duty, he can only afford a robot imitation, unless he gets a big financial break.
The genetically warped "chickenhead" John Isidore has visions of a tomb-world where entropy has finally won. And everyone plugs in to the spiritual agony of Mercer, whose sufferings for the sins of humanity are broadcast several times a day. Prefiguring the religious obsessions of Dick's last novels, this book asks dark questions about identity and altruism. After all, is it right to kill the killers just because Mercer says so? --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War IIby Ronald T. TakakiISBN 0316831565 (0-316-83156-5)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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Economics and Contemporary Issues With Economics Applications Card and Infotrac College Editionby Michael R. Edgmand, Ronald L. Moomaw, Kent W. OlsonISBN 0324171935 (0-324-17193-5)
Softcover, South-Western Pub
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The Evolution of the British Welfare State: A History of Social Policy Since the Industrial Revolutionby Derek FraserISBN 0333111893 (0-333-11189-3)
Softcover, Macmillan
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Fathering the Unthinkable: Masculinity, Scientists and the Nuclear Arms Raceby Brian EasleaISBN 031757812X (0-317-57812-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Film: The Democratic Artby Garth JowettISBN 0316473707 (0-316-47370-7)
Hardcover, Little, Brown
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The Forever Warby Joe HaldemanISBN 0345324897 (0-345-32489-7)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Forever War'Book summary:In the 1970s Joe Haldeman approached more than a dozen different publishers before he finally found one interested in The Forever War. The book went on to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, although a large chunk of the story had been cut out before it saw publication. Now Haldeman and Avon Books have released the definitive version of The Forever War, published for the first time as Haldeman originally intended. The book tells the timeless story of war, in this case a conflict between humanity and the alien Taurans. Humans first bumped heads with the Taurans when we began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student drafted as a soldier, that means more than 27 years will have passed between his first encounter with the Taurans and his homecoming, though he himself will have aged only a year. When Mandella finds that he can't adjust to Earth after being gone so long from home, he reenlists, only to find himself shuttled endlessly from battle to battle as the centuries pass. --Craig E. Engler [via]
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Foundation's Edgeby Isaac AsimovISBN 0345308980 (0-345-30898-0)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Foundation's Edge'Book summary:Now, 498 years after its founding, the foundation seemed to be following the seldon plan perfectly. Too perfectly. Now an impossible planet -- with impossible powers -- threatens to upset the seldon plan for good unless two men, sworn enemies, can work together to save it [via]
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Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trashby Elizabeth RoyteISBN 0316738263 (0-316-73826-3)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religionby James George FrazerISBN 0333647688 (0-333-64768-8)
Softcover, Macmillan Pub Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion'Book summary:Before Joseph Campbell became the world's most famous practitioner of comparative mythology, there was Sir James George Frazer. The Golden Bough was originally published in two volumes in 1890, but Frazer became so enamored of his topic that over the next few decades he expanded the work sixfold, then in 1922 cut it all down to a single thick edition suitable for mass distribution. The thesis on the origins of magic and religion that it elaborates "will be long and laborious," Frazer warns readers, "but may possess something of the charm of a voyage of discovery, in which we shall visit many strange lands, with strange foreign peoples, and still stranger customs." Chief among those customs--at least as the book is remembered in the popular imagination--is the sacrificial killing of god-kings to ensure bountiful harvests, which Frazer traces through several cultures, including in his elaborations the myths of Adonis, Osiris, and Balder.
While highly influential in its day, The Golden Bough has come under harsh critical scrutiny in subsequent decades, with many of its descriptions of regional folklore and legends deemed less than reliable. Furthermore, much of its tone is rooted in a philosophy of social Darwinism--sheer cultural imperialism, really--that finds its most explicit form in Frazer's rhetorical question: "If in the most backward state of human society now known to us we find magic thus conspicuously present and religion conspicuously absent, may we not reasonably conjecture that the civilised races of the world have also at some period of their history passed through a similar intellectual phase?" (The truly civilized races, he goes on to say later, though not particularly loudly, are the ones whose minds evolve beyond religious belief to embrace the rational structures of scientific thought.) Frazer was much too genteel to state plainly that "primitive" races believe in magic because they are too stupid and backwards to know any better; instead he remarks that "a savage hardly conceives the distinction commonly drawn by more advanced peoples between the natural and the supernatural." And he certainly was not about to make explicit the logical extension of his theories--"that Christian legend, dogma, and ritual" (to quote Robert Graves's summation of Frazer in The White Goddess) "are the refinement of a great body of primitive and barbarous beliefs." Whatever modern readers have come to think of the book, however, its historical significance and the eloquence with which Frazer attempts to develop what one might call a unifying theory of anthropology cannot be denied. --Ron Hogan [via]
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Golden Compassby Philip PullmanISBN 0345413350 (0-345-41335-0)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Golden Compass'Book summary:Some books improve with age--the age of the reader, that is. Such is certainly the case with Philip Pullman's heroic, at times heart-wrenching novel, The Golden Compass, a story ostensibly for children but one perhaps even better appreciated by adults. The protagonist of this complex fantasy is young Lyra Belacqua, a precocious orphan growing up within the precincts of Oxford University. But it quickly becomes clear that Lyra's Oxford is not precisely like our own--nor is her world. For one thing, people there each have a personal daemon, the manifestation of their souls in animal form. For another, hers is a universe in which science, theology, and magic are closely allied:
As for what experimental theology was, Lyra had no more idea than the urchins. She had formed the notion that it was concerned with magic, with the movements of the stars and planets, with tiny particles of matter, but that was guesswork, really. Probably the stars had daemons just as humans did, and experimental theology involved talking to them.
Not that Lyra spends much time worrying about it; what she likes best is "clambering over the College roofs with Roger the kitchen boy who was her particular friend, to spit plum stones on the heads of passing Scholars or to hoot like owls outside a window where a tutorial was going on, or racing through the narrow streets, or stealing apples from the market, or waging war." But Lyra's carefree existence changes forever when she and her daemon, Pantalaimon, first prevent an assassination attempt against her uncle, the powerful Lord Asriel, and then overhear a secret discussion about a mysterious entity known as Dust. Soon she and Pan are swept up in a dangerous game involving disappearing children, a beautiful woman with a golden monkey daemon, a trip to the far north, and a set of allies ranging from "gyptians" to witches to an armor-clad polar bear.In The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman has written a masterpiece that transcends genre. It is a children's book that will appeal to adults, a fantasy novel that will charm even the most hardened realist. Best of all, the author doesn't speak down to his audience, nor does he pull his punches; there is genuine terror in this book, and heartbreak, betrayal, and loss. There is also love, loyalty, and an abiding morality that infuses the story but never overwhelms it. This is one of those rare novels that one wishes would never end. Fortunately, its sequel, The Subtle Knife, will help put off that inevitability for a while longer. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Gulliver's Travelsby Jonathan Swift, Christopher FoxISBN 0333634381 (0-333-63438-1)
Hardcover, Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gulliver's Travels'Book summary:Gulliver's Travels remains one of the most popular and widely-studied of literary classics. This edition reprints an authoritative text together with five newly-commissioned essays designed to introduce the text to students from a variety of contemporary critical perspectives. [via]
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Hard Timesby Charles Dickens, George Lewis LevineISBN 0330251910 (0-330-25191-0)
Hardcover, Pan Books
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Hard Times: A Longman Cultural Editionby Jeff Nunokawa, Gage McWeenyISBN 0321107217 (0-321-10721-7)
Softcover, Longman Pub Group
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Hell's Angelsby Hunter S. ThompsonISBN 0345410084 (0-345-41008-4)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hell's Angels'Book summary:Gonzo journalist and literary roustabout Hunter S. Thompson flies with the angels--Hell's Angels, that is. He's lived with them, he knows them and their machines, he speaks their langauge,and he reports it back to the world with all the fearsome force of a souped-up cyclone burning rubber. [via]
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History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islamby Karen ArmstrongISBN 0345384563 (0-345-38456-3)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam'Book summary:Armstrong, a British journalist and former nun, guides us along one of the most elusive and fascinating quests of all time--the search for God. Like all beloved historians, Armstrong entertains us with deft storytelling, astounding research, and makes us feel a greater appreciation for the present because we better understand our past. Be warned: A History of God is not a tidy linear history. Rather, we learn that the definition of God is constantly being repeated, altered, discarded, and resurrected through the ages, responding to its followers' practical concerns rather than to mystical mandates. Armstrong also shows us how Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have overlapped and influenced one another, gently challenging the secularist history of each of these religions. --Gail Hudson [via]
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An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn'tby William Wilson, Judy JonesISBN 0345295706 (0-345-29570-6)
Hardcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't'Book summary:You'll find everything you forgot from school--as well as plenty you never even learned--in this all-purpose reference book, an instant classic when it first appeared in 1987. The updated version takes a whirlwind tour through 12 different disciplines, from American studies to philosophy to world history. Along the way, Judy Jones and William Wilson provide a plethora of useful information, from the plot of Othello to the difference between fission and fusion. It's not a shortcut to cultural literacy, the authors write in their introduction, but it's an excellent "way in" to the building blocks of Western civilization: the "books, music, art, philosophy, and discoveries that have, for one reason or another, managed to endure." Think of it as finishing school for your brain; study up and you'll gain a lifetime's worth of cocktail conversation--as well as a new list of books you simply must read. [via]
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It Had to Be You: Gossip Girl Prequelby Cecily Von ZiegesarISBN 0316910333 (0-316-91033-3)
Softcover, Poppy
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J.R.R. Tolkienby J. R. R. TolkienISBN 0345340426 (0-345-34042-6)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'J.R.R. Tolkien'Book summary:Four book set includes the Hobbit and Complete Lord of the Rings; the Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers; The Return of The King. [via]
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Jerusalem in the Time of Jesusby Joachim JeremiasISBN 0334007623 (0-334-00762-3)
Hardcover, S.C.M. Press
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Leaving Mother Lake: A Girlhood at the Edge of the Worldby Christine Mathieu, Yang Erche NamuISBN 0316735493 (0-316-73549-3)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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Let Us Now Praise Famous Menby James Agee, Evans WalkerISBN 0345276965 (0-345-27696-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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Letters from London: 1990-1995by Julian BarnesISBN 0330341162 (0-330-34116-2)
Hardcover, Picador
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The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waughby Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh, Charlotte MosleyISBN 0340638044 (0-340-63804-4)
Hardcover, Hodder & Stoughton
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh'Book summary:Charlotte Mosley's careful collection of Nancy Mitford's and Evelyn Waugh's delightfully careless letters immerses one in a lost whirl. The two writers met in London in the late 1920s, but their correspondence didn't take off until mid-World War II, when it quickly became an exaggeration-fest. Mitford, for example, matches Waugh's surreal reports from Europe with one about an M.P. swelling up before his fellow politicians' eyes: "Well, it took 2 ambulances to get him away & now he lies on 4 beds with his trunk hanging out the window. Let nobody say that war time London lacks fantasy."
For the next 21 years, these gifted gossips would render the ridiculous sublime and vice versa, turning (and then only mildly) serious in discussions of reading and writing, preferring to glide over the problematic and emotional. Throughout, Mitford likes to play the euphoric, lazy pupil, Waugh the master grammarian, theologian, and meanie. The exchanges on their own works in progress--particularly on Brideshead Revisited and The Pursuit of Love--are an important addition to literary history, but the book's true exhilaration lies in Mitford and Waugh's knowing--and knowingly vile--comic timing. Irresistibly offensive. [via]
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Lord of the Rings Trilogyby J. R. R. TolkienISBN 0345247868 (0-345-24786-8)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lord of the Rings Trilogy'Book summary:Let's face it--even some adults find Tolkien's mammoth fantasy a daunting mouthful but children now have this special seven-book box set of The Lord of The Rings to make the epic tale just that bit easier to chew on. Split into its seven constituent parts, these slim volumes tell the ageless tale of young Frodo's quest to destroy The Ring and defeat the forces of evil. It's beautifully presented in a black presentation box with the movie logo and an illustration on the side and the spines of the books also form the movie logo. A contemporary look and plenty of "cool appeal" will grab kids' interest and ensure they don't miss out on reading this classic of the genre. --Jonathan Weir [via]
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The Lovely Bonesby Alice SeboldISBN 0316666343 (0-316-66634-3)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lovely Bones'Book summary:On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon ("like the fish") is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey.
Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case. As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams," where "there were no teachers.... We never had to go inside except for art class.... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue."
The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the edge of the living, always attached to her lost world, following her family's dramas over the years as if watching an episode of My So-Called Afterlife. Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family, and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on Earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow." Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish, and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings. --Brad Thomas Parsons [via]
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The Madwoman's Underclothes: Essays and Occasional Writings, 1968-85by Germaine GreerISBN 0330294075 (0-330-29407-5)
Hardcover, Picador
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Marx's Grundrisseby Karl Marx, David McLellanISBN 0333118464 (0-333-11846-4)
Hardcover, Macmillan
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Mass Media And Societyby Michael GurevitchISBN 0340884991 (0-340-88499-1)
Softcover, Hodder Arnold
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Mau Mau: An African Crucibleby Robert B. EdgertonISBN 0345369785 (0-345-36978-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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Moby Dickby Herman Melville, John Bryant, Haskell SpringerISBN 0321228006 (0-321-22800-6)
Softcover, Longman Pub Group
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Nakedby David SedarisISBN 0316777730 (0-316-77773-0)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Naked'Book summary:Hip radio comedy fans and theater folks who belong to the cult of Obie-winning playwright/performer David Sedaris must kill to get this book. These would be fans of the scaldingly snide Sedaris's hilariously described personal misadventures like The Santaland Diaries (a monologue about his work as an elf to a department store Santa) seen off-Broadway in 1997. In a series of similarly textured essays, Sedaris takes us along on his catastrophic detours through a nudist colony, a fruit-packing plant, his own childhood, and a dozen more of the world's little purgatories. [via]
Nine Storiesby J. D. SalingerISBN 0316767727 (0-316-76772-7)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Nine Stories'Book summary:In the J.D. Salinger benchmark "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," Seymour Glass floats his beach mate Sybil on a raft and tells her about these creatures' tragic flaw. Though they seem normal, if one swims into a hole filled with bananas, it will overeat until it's too fat to escape. Meanwhile, Seymour's wife, Muriel, is back at their Florida hotel, assuring her mother not to worry--Seymour hasn't lost control. Mention of a book he sent her from Germany and several references to his psychiatrist lead the reader to believe that World War II has undone him.
The war hangs over these wry stories of loss and occasionally unsuppressed rage. Salinger's children are fragile, odd, hypersmart, whereas his grown-ups (even the materially content) seem beaten down by circumstances--some neurasthenic, others (often female) deeply unsympathetic. The greatest piece in this disturbing book may be "The Laughing Man," which starts out as a man's recollection of the pleasures of storytelling and ends with the intersection between adult need and childish innocence. The narrator remembers how, at nine, he and his fellow Comanches would be picked up each afternoon by the Chief--a Staten Island law student paid to keep them busy. At the end of each day, the Chief winds them down with the saga of a hideously deformed, gentle, world-class criminal. With his stalwart companions, which include "a glib timber wolf" and "a lovable dwarf," the Laughing Man regularly crosses the Paris-China border in order to avoid capture by "the internationally famous detective" Marcel Dufarge and his daughter, "an exquisite girl, though something of a transvestite." The masked hero's luck comes to an end on the same day that things go awry between the Chief and his girlfriend, hardly a coincidence. "A few minutes later, when I stepped out of the Chief's bus, the first thing I chanced to see was a piece of red tissue paper flapping in the wind against the base of a lamppost. It looked like someone's poppy-petal mask. I arrived home with my teeth chattering uncontrollably and was told to go straight to bed." [via]
A Pair of Blue Eyesby Thomas HardyISBN 0333177649 (0-333-17764-9)
Hardcover, Trafalgar Square
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Paradise Lost. Book 10;by John Milton, C.A. Patrides, E. A. J. HonigmannISBN 0333019458 (0-333-01945-8)
Hardcover, Macmillan
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The Play Ethic: A Manifesto for a Different Way of Lifeby Pat KaneISBN 0330489305 (0-330-48930-5)
Softcover, Pan Macmillan
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Pope Joanby Donna Woolfolk CrossISBN 0345416260 (0-345-41626-0)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pope Joan'Book summary:One of the most controversial women of history is brought to brilliant life in Donn Woolfolk Cross's tale of Pope Joan, a girl whose origins should have kept her in squalid domesticity. Instead, through her intelligence, indomitability and courage, she ascended to the throne of Rome as Pope John Anglicus.
The time is 814, the place is Ingelheim, a Frankland village. It is the harshest winter in living memory when Joan is born to an English father and a Saxon mother. Her father is a canon, filled with holy zeal and capable of unconscionable cruelty. His piety does not extend to his family members, especially the females. His wife, Gudrun, is a young beauty to whom he was attracted beyond his will--and he hates her for showing him his weakness. Gudrun teaches Joan about her gods, and is repeatedly punished for it by the canon. Joan grows to young womanhood with the combined knowledge of the warlike Saxon gods and the teachings of the Church as her heritage. Both realities inform her life forever.
When her brother John, not a scholarly type, is sent away to school, Joan, who was supposed to be the one sent to school, runs away and joins him in Dorstadt, at Villaris, the home of Gerold, who is central to Joan's story. She falls in love with Gerold and their lives interesect repeatedly even through her Papacy. She is looked upon by all who know that she is a woman as a "lusus naturae," a freak of nature. "She was... male in intellect, female in body, she fit in nowhere; it was as if she belonged to a third amorphous sex." Cross makes the case over and over again that the status of women in the Dark Ages was little better than cattle. They were judged inferior in every way, and necessary evils in the bargain.
After John is killed in a Viking attack, Joan sees her opportunity to escape the fate of all her gender. She cuts her hair, dons her dead brother's clothes and goes into the world as a young boy. Gerold is away from Villaris at the time of the attack and comes home to find his home in ruins, his family killed and Joan among the missing. After the attack, Joan goes to a Benedictine monastery, is accepted as a young man of great learning, and eventually makes her way to Rome.
The author is at pains to tell the reader in an Epilogue that she has written the story as fiction because it is impossible to document Joan's accesion to the Papacy. The Catholic Church has done everything possible to deny this embarrassment. Whether or not one believes in Joan as Pope, this is a compelling story, filled with all kinds of lore: the brutishness of the Dark Ages, Vatican intrigue, politics and favoritism and most of all, the place of women in the Church and in the world. --Valerie Ryan [via]
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The Portable Promise Landby ToureISBN 0316738360 (0-316-73836-0)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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The Return of the Nativeby Thomas HardyISBN 0330344692 (0-330-34469-2)
Softcover, Macmillan Pub Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Return of the Native'Book summary:Wild passion leads to tragedy as love is perverted by marriage. But the concerns of mortals are belittled by the sombre, immemorial presence of Egdon Heath, perhaps Hardy's finest evocation of his native landscape. The text is accompanied by a critical introduction. [via]
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- The Return of the Native: ISBN 0333168941 (0-333-16894-1)
Hardcover, Trafalgar Square - The Return of the Native: ISBN 0333168844 (0-333-16884-4)
Hardcover, Macmillan - The Return of the Native: ISBN 0333179072 (0-333-17907-2)
Hardcover, Macmillan - The Return of the Native: ISBN 0330344692 (0-330-34469-2)
Softcover, Macmillan Pub Ltd
- The Return of the Native: ISBN 0333168941 (0-333-16894-1)
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The Rise and Fall of Gay Cultureby Daniel HarrisISBN 034542672X (0-345-42672-X)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture'Book summary:Daniel Harris comes on strong: "For far too long, the book trade has provided gay readers with nothing more than the literary equivalent of a warm glow, a soothing linguistic salve for the walking wounded, as if we were all still 13 and were all still mustering the courage to come out, as if, after 25 years of gay liberation, we all still needed to be scolded and cajoled into self-acceptance.... Homosexuals are not permanent intellectual convalescents. They are thriving, mentally, if not physically, and it is time that they remove their bandages, raise themselves off of the soft, snug, and commodious bed of uplifting ideology in which they have slept for decades, and face some important truths about a culture desperately in need of being shaken out of its complacency."
Harris musters an impressive body of evidence to show how many of the elements of gay culture are rooted not in a "psychological fetish" for, say, Bette Davis movies or shiny leather boots, but in a "social fetish"; gay men, in other words, bonded together over Hollywood divas and kinky sex because it's something they could do together that set them apart from their heterosexual peers. But as society becomes increasingly more tolerant of queerness, Harris argues, gay men feel less need to be culturally unique. And their culture slowly disappears into the mainstream. With its analyses of the deterioration of camp's hold over the gay community, the evolution of drag queens and leathermen, and the kitschy commodification of AIDS, The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture quickly became one of the most controversial gay-themed nonfiction works of the '90s when it was first published. It remains as provocative today. --Ron Hogan [via]
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Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Childrenby Jonathan KellermanISBN 0345429397 (0-345-42939-7)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children'Book summary:Jonathan Kellerman is best known as the author of a series of bestselling suspense novels starring psychologist sleuth Dr. Alex Delaware, but his nonliterary background is as a children's clinical psychologist. In Savage Spawn, inspired by the schoolyard shootings that took place in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Springfield, Oregon, in 1998, he brings his training to bear on the question of how children can become cold-blooded killers. Kellerman has as much--perhaps more--to say about the broader issue of the nature of psychopathy, however, than he does about youth violence, though he does occasionally bring the two themes together. But Savage Spawn is essentially a hundred-page-plus op-ed piece rooted in Kellerman's belief that there are fundamentally bad people in the world and that the response to the perpetrators of violent acts such as the shooting at Jonesboro should be to "lock them up till they die." (Although published shortly after the multiple-death shooting in Littleton, Colorado, in 1999, the book was clearly written before this incident took place.) Readers may ultimately prefer more detailed considerations such as William Pollack's Real Boys or Lost Boys, by James Garbarino. [via]
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The Secret Between Us: Competition Among Womenby Laura TracyISBN 0316852201 (0-316-85220-1)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deafby Oliver W. SacksISBN 0330320904 (0-330-32090-4)
Hardcover, Picador, published by Pan Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf'Book summary:Written by the author of "The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat", this book begins with the history of deaf people in the 18th century, the often outrageous ways in which they have been treated in the past, and their continuing struggle for acceptance in a hearing world. And it examines the visual language of the deaf - Sign - which has only in the past decade been recognized fully as a language linguistically complete, rich, and as expressive as any spoken language. Oliver Sacks has also written "Migraine", "Awakenings" and "A Leg to Stand on". [via]
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The Seven Sisters: The Great Oil Companies and the World They Madeby Anthony SampsonISBN 0340194278 (0-340-19427-8)
Hardcover, Hodder and Stoughton
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Sexual Politicsby Kate MillettISBN 0345292707 (0-345-29270-7)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Areby Carl Sagan, Ann DruyanISBN 0345384725 (0-345-38472-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are'Book summary:"Dazzling...A feast. Absorbing and elegantly written, it tells of theorigins of life on earth, describes its variety and charaacter, and culminates in a discussion of human nature and teh complex traces ofhumankind's evolutionary past...It is an amazing story masterfully told."
FINANCIAL TIMES (LONDON)
World renowned scientist Carl Sagan and acclaimed author Ann Druyan have written a ROOTS for the human species, a lucid and riveting account of how humans got to be the way we are. It shows with humor and drama that many of our key traits--self-awareness, technology, family ties, submission to authority, hatred for those a little different from ourselves, reason, and ethics--are rooted in the deep past, and illuminated by our kinship with other animals. Astonishing in its scope, brilliant in its insights, and an absolutely compelling read, SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS is a triumph of popular science. [via]More editions of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are:
The Shockwave Riderby John BrunnerISBN 0345324315 (0-345-32431-5)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Sirens of Titanby Kurt VonnegutISBN 0340028769 (0-340-02876-9)
Hardcover, Hodder & Stoughton
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sirens of Titan'Book summary:Winston has flown his craft into a chrono-synclastic infundibulum, and been converted into pure energy. Materializing only when his waveforms intercept a planet, he only gets home once every 59 days. But at least it's some consolation that he knows all that ever has been and all that ever will be. [via]
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The Sky's the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattanby Steven S. GainesISBN 0316608513 (0-316-60851-3)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sky's the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan'Book summary:Steven Gaines trains his sharp eye on rich people behaving badly. The arena is Manhattan luxury property and the outlandish displays of ego, outrageous behaviour, blood feuds, status hunger and conspicuous consumption that dominate that world. THE SKY'S THE LIMIT reveals the apartment-swapping adventures of many celebrities - from Jerry Seinfeld to Barbra Streisand, from Tommy Hilfiger to Gloria Vanderbilt - whose adventures in promiscuous apartment swapping and renovating are told with typical Gaines verve and style. And Gaines digs much deeper to tell us the fascinating story of how boxes stacked on boxes came to be seen as the ultimate in status for the rich. He explores the development of the cooperative apartment, originally conceived as a way to house the poor. He introduces us to a fascinating, diverse cast of carriage trade brokers, whose most important task is to get their anxious clients past the dreaded co-op board. And he gives us finely etched portraits of a few of the discreet, elderly society ladies who are the real arbiters of who gets into the so-called Good Buildings. [via]
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Soul Cityby ToureISBN 0316741582 (0-316-74158-2)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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Sperm Warsby Robin BakerISBN 0330390775 (0-330-39077-5)
Hardcover, Pan Macmillan
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sperm Wars'Book summary:Robin Baker puts forward the thesis that evolution has programmed men to conquer and monopolise women while women, without even knowing they are doing it, seek the best genetic input on offer from potential sexual partners. Facts of life presented include: 10 per cent of children are not fathered by their "fathers", less than 1 per cent off a man's sperm is capable of fertilizing anything - the rest is there to fight off other men's sperm, "smart" vaginal mucus encourages some sperm but blocks others, and a woman is far more likely to conceive through a casual fling than through sex with her regular partner. Baker describes fictionalized scences and then explains the science behind the actions to demonstrate how our everyday behaviour fits into a pattern of evolution. [via]
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The Squares of the Cityby John BrunnerISBN 0345234367 (0-345-23436-7)
Hardcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Squares of the City'Book summary:A tour-de-force, a disciplined exercise peopled originally by wooden or ivory or jade figurines, now fleshed and clothed and given dramatic life in a battle as old as the classic conflict of chess. But these are real people. When heads roll, blood gouts out and drenches the remaining players while they watch in horrified fascination - until their turn comes. For it is a real game. And the players cannot tell the outcome. Even when their lives depend on it [via]
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Subtle Knifeby Philip PullmanISBN 0345413369 (0-345-41336-9)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Subtle Knife'Book summary:With The Golden Compass Philip Pullman garnered every accolade under the sun. Critics lobbed around such superlatives as "elegant," "awe-inspiring," "grand," and "glittering," and used "magnificent" with gay abandon. Each reader had a favorite chapter--or, more likely, several--from the opening tour de force to Lyra's close call at Bolvangar to the great armored-bear battle. And Pullman was no less profligate when it came to intellectual firepower or singular characters. The dæmons alone grant him a place in world literature. Could the second installment of his trilogy keep up this pitch, or had his heroine and her too, too sullied parents consumed him? And what of the belief system that pervaded his alternate universe, not to mention the mystery of Dust? More revelations and an equal number of wonders and new players were definitely in order.
The Subtle Knife offers everything we could have wished for, and more. For a start, there's a young hero--from our world--who is a match for Lyra Silvertongue and whose destiny is every bit as shattering. Like Lyra, Will Parry has spent his childhood playing games. Unlike hers, though, his have been deadly serious. This 12-year-old long ago learned the art of invisibility: if he could erase himself, no one would discover his mother's increasing instability and separate them.
As the novel opens, Will's enemies will do anything for information about his missing father, a soldier and Arctic explorer who has been very much airbrushed from the official picture. Now Will must get his mother into safe seclusion and make his way toward Oxford, which may hold the key to John Parry's disappearance. But en route and on the lam from both the police and his family's tormentors, he comes upon a cat with more than a mouse on her mind: "She reached out a paw to pat something in the air in front of her, something quite invisible to Will." What seems to him a patch of everyday Oxford conceals far more: "The cat stepped forward and vanished." Will, too, scrambles through and into another oddly deserted landscape--one in which children rule and adults (and felines) are very much at risk. Here in this deathly silent city by the sea, he will soon have a dustup with a fierce, flinty little girl: "Her expression was a mixture of the very young--when she first tasted the cola--and a kind of deep, sad wariness." Soon Will and Lyra (and, of course, her dæmon, Pantalaimon) uneasily embark on a great adventure and head into greater tragedy.
As Pullman moves between his young warriors and the witch Serafina Pekkala, the magnetic, ever-manipulative Mrs. Coulter, and Lee Scoresby and his hare dæmon, Hester, there are clear signs of approaching war and earthly chaos. There are new faces as well. The author introduces Oxford dark-matter researcher Mary Malone; the Latvian witch queen Ruta Skadi, who "had trafficked with spirits, and it showed"; Stanislaus Grumman, a shaman in search of a weapon crucial to the cause of Lord Asriel, Lyra's father; and a serpentine old man whom Lyra and Pan can't quite place. Also on hand are the Specters, beings that make cliff-ghasts look like rank amateurs.
Throughout, Pullman is in absolute control of his several worlds, his plot and pace equal to his inspiration. Any number of astonishing scenes--small- and large-scale--will have readers on edge, and many are cause for tears. "You think things have to be possible," Will demands. "Things have to be true!" It is Philip Pullman's gift to turn what quotidian minds would term the impossible into a reality that is both heartbreaking and beautiful. --Kerry Fried [via]
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Trial of Socratesby I.F. StoneISBN 0316817589 (0-316-81758-9)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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A Tribe Apartby Patricia HerschISBN 034543594X (0-345-43594-X)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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Twentieth-Century America: Politics and Power in the United States, 1900-2000by Michael HealeISBN 0340614072 (0-340-61407-2)
Softcover, Hodder Arnold
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The Two Mrs. Grenvillesby Dominick DunneISBN 0345430565 (0-345-43056-5)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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Ulyssesby James Joyce, Danis RoseISBN 033035230X (0-330-35230-X)
Softcover, Trans-Atlantic Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ulysses'Book summary:Ulysses has been labeled dirty, blasphemous, and unreadable. In a famous 1933 court decision, Judge John M. Woolsey declared it an emetic book--although he found it sufficiently unobscene to allow its importation into the United States--and Virginia Woolf was moved to decry James Joyce's "cloacal obsession." None of these adjectives, however, do the slightest justice to the novel. To this day it remains the modernist masterpiece, in which the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. It is funny, sorrowful, and even (in a close-focus sort of way) suspenseful. And despite the exegetical industry that has sprung up in the last 75 years, Ulysses is also a compulsively readable book. Even the verbal vaudeville of the final chapters can be navigated with relative ease, as long as you're willing to be buffeted, tickled, challenged, and (occasionally) vexed by Joyce's sheer command of the English language.
Among other things, a novel is simply a long story, and the first question about any story is: What happens?. In the case of Ulysses, the answer might be Everything. William Blake, one of literature's sublime myopics, saw the universe in a grain of sand. Joyce saw it in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904, a day distinguished by its utter normality. Two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, go about their separate business, crossing paths with a gallery of indelible Dubliners. We watch them teach, eat, stroll the streets, argue, and (in Bloom's case) masturbate. And thanks to the book's stream-of-consciousness technique--which suggests no mere stream but an impossibly deep, swift-running river--we're privy to their thoughts, emotions, and memories. The result? Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordian folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism.
Both characters add their glorious intonations to the music of Joyce's prose. Dedalus's accent--that of a freelance aesthetician, who dabbles here and there in what we might call Early Yeats Lite--will be familiar to readers of Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man. But Bloom's wistful sensualism (and naive curiosity) is something else entirely. Seen through his eyes, a rundown corner of a Dublin graveyard is a figure for hope and hopelessness, mortality and dogged survival: "Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?" --James Marcus [via]
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Vile Bodiesby Evelyn WaughISBN 0316926116 (0-316-92611-6)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Vile Bodies'Book summary:Evelyn Waugh's second novel, "Vile Bodies" is his tribute to London's smart set. It introduces us to society as it used to be but that now is gone forever, and probably for good. [via]
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War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Centuryby Alvin Toffler, Heidi TofflerISBN 0316850241 (0-316-85024-1)
Hardcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century'More editions of War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century:
The Women's Roomby Marilyn FrenchISBN 0345353617 (0-345-35361-7)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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Workingby Studs TerkelISBN 0345325699 (0-345-32569-9)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Working'Book summary:Studs Turkel records the voices of America. Men and women from every walk of life talk to him, telling him of their likes and dislikes, fears, problems, and happinesses on the job. Once again, Turkel has created a rich and unique document that is as simple as conversation, but as subtle and heartfelt as the meaning of our lives.... [via]
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The World We're InISBN 0316860816 (0-316-86081-6)
Softcover, Little, Brown
Find This BookBook summary:Written with typical passion and command of a battery of facts, Will Hutton's The World We're In is a fierce attack on the politics of Euroscepticism and US economic conservatism. Hutton has already established his credentials as one of the leading liberal economic thinkers on the British State with his bestselling The State We're In. In The World We're In he widens his focus to discuss the global economy and the fraught relations between the US and Europe in the aftermath of September 11.
Hutton argues that "if the rest of the world is not careful, our future will be to accept globalisation almost entirely on American conservative terms." He believes that the great tradition of liberalism in the US is in retreat, that "America is the most unequal society in the industrialised West", and that claims regarding its economic supremacy and efficiency have been hugely exaggerated. For Hutton, the future lies with the European Union's more inclusive and liberal approach towards politics and economics.
The book skilfully charts its way through the different historical, economic and philosophical approaches to land, law and profit that have defined the European and American traditions, concluding that Europe offers a better "scope within globalisation for different cultures and approaches to capitalism to flourish." For Hutton, this involves a philosophical belief in the existence of a civic society and a flourishing society, a "decentralised State, consensual labour relations" and a stakeholder ethos that America has always lacked. He admits that this "is a book for the idea of Europe", that also envisages the United Kingdom at the heart of Europe, not Washington. Marshalling an impressive array of economic data alongside an impassioned belief in radical democracy, The World We're In is an important addition to the urgent discussions regarding the world we want. --Jerry Brotton [via]
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You Just Don't Understand : Women and Men in Conversationby Deborah TannenISBN 0345372050 (0-345-37205-0)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'You Just Don't Understand : Women and Men in Conversation'Book summary:"A chatty, earnest and endearing book that promises here-and-now rewards for taking the trouble to listen more carefully to what others are saying--and to be more sensitive to what others are hearing."LOS ANGELES TIMESDiscover how men and women can interpret the same conversation differently, even when there is no apparent misunderstanding. Discover why sinscere attempts to communicate are so often confounded, and how we can prevent or relieve some of the frustration. This fascinating, helpful, and controversial book--on the NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller list for two years!--explores, in depth the differing style men and women articulate, and how to work through it and get to the heart of the matter. [via]
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