Figures in the Carpet


Book Description

Figures in the Carpet presents a stellar roster of first-rate historians dealing seriously with a perennially important subject. The case studies and more theoretical accounts in this book amount to an unusually perceptive assessment of how "the person' has been viewed in American history.




The Figure in the Carpet


Book Description

Enwrapped in indescribable mysteriousness, ‘The Figure in the Carpet’ (1896) is a short story by the American-born British writer Henry James. It explores the meaning of art and how it is found in what other people see. Hugh Vereker is a famous author who says the secret to his greatness and skill is hidden in his works ‘like a complex figure in a Persian carpet’. When the narrator of the story meets Vereker, he becomes obsessed with discovering the secret meaning of his favourite author's works. Those who enjoy Henry James' short story will likely find ́Eureka ́ by Anthony Quinn interesting as The Figure is an important part of the plot. Henry James (1843-1916) was an American-born, British author, and one of the founders of the school of realism in fiction. His inventive use of interior monologues and unreliable narrators, brought a complexity and depth to his work that made him hugely popular. A prolific writer, he published numerous novels, articles, travel books, biographies and plays. Many of his stories have been adapted for TV and film, such as ‘What Maisie Knew’ (2012) starring Steve Coogan and Julianne Moore. However, it is his celebrated Gothic novella ‘The Turn of the Screw’ (1898), regarded as one of the greatest ghost stories ever written, that has been adapted more than any other. Most recently, the eponymous 2009 BBC TV series starring Michelle Dockery, and the Netflix series, ‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’ (2020). James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916.




The Phoenix and the Carpet


Book Description

Five British children discover in their new carpet an egg, which hatches into a phoenix that takes them on a series of fantastic adventures around the world.




The Legend of the Persian Carpet


Book Description

Tomie dePaola matches his storytelling talent with the richly patterned artwork of Claire Ewart to provide a tale that brings magnificent detail and feeling to this Middle Eastern fable of loss overcome by art. Full color.




The Carpet Weaver


Book Description

Afghanistan, 1977. Kanishka Nurzada, the son of a leading carpet seller, falls in love with his friend Maihan, with whom he shares his first kiss at the age of sixteen. Their romance must be kept secret in a nation where the death penalty is meted out to those deemed to be kuni, a derogatory term for gay men. And when war comes to Afghanistan, it brings even greater challenges-and danger-for the two lovers. From the cultural melting pot of Kabul to the horrors of an internment camp in Pakistan, Kanishka's arduous journey finally takes him to the USA in the desperate search for a place to call home-and the fervent hope of reuniting with his beloved Maihan. But destiny seems to have different plans in store for him. Intimate and powerful, The Carpet Weaver is a sweeping tale of a young gay man's struggle to come of age and find love in the face of brutal persecution.




The Persian Carpet Tradition


Book Description

Between 1400 and 1500 a design revolution in Persia swept away a 2000-year-old tradition of carpet design, replacing abstract geometric patterns with complex floral scrolls dominated by a central medallion derived from the Chinese cloud-collar shape. This revolution represents a major event in world art history, comparable to that which occurred at the same time in Renaissance Italy. It was followed over the next four centuries by a second revolution, during which the principal design elements of the first permeated carpet production at every level throughout Persia and continue to dominate it to this day. AUTHOR: Jim Ford worked for many years for the world-famous international oriental carpet import/export company OCM. In his career he followed in the illustrious footsteps of A. Cecil Edwards (author of The Persian Carpet, Duckworth 1953), as the company's rug-buying agent in Iran, before setting up his own business after the Iranian Revolution with his wife Barbara Lindsay Ford, designing and producing their own contemporary carpets in Nepal. He is the author of one of the best-selling oriental rug books of all time, Oriental Carpet Design: A Guide to Traditional Motifs, Patterns and Symbols, which has been subsequently reprinted on both sides of the Atlantic and translated into German and other languages. SELLING POINT: * Miniature paintings unlock the door to a thorough re-examination of the ubiquitous 'classical' medallion design in Persian carpets, revealing an artistic revolution comparable to that which occurred at the same time in Renaissance Italy 380 colour and 20 b/w photographs




Bad Behavior


Book Description

National Book Award finalist Mary Gaitskill’s debut collection, Bad Behavior—powerful stories about dislocation, longing, and desire which depict a disenchanted and rebellious urban fringe generation that is searching for human connection. Now a classic, Bad Behavior made critical waves when it first published, heralding Gaitskill’s arrival on the literary scene and her establishment as one of the sharpest, erotically charged, and audaciously funny writing talents of contemporary literature. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times called it “Pinteresque,” saying, “Ms. Gaitskill writes with such authority, such radar-perfect detail, that she is able to make even the most extreme situations seem real…her reportorial candor, uncompromised by sentimentality or voyeuristic charm…underscores the strength of her debut.”




The Lying Carpet


Book Description

Imagine a typical living room in a large house. It has a tiger rug on the floor, a statue of a little girl on the window sill, and an armchair. And they talk. The tiger cannot see anything except the base-board because he is lying on the floor, and the chair can only look at the opposite wall. And then the statue comes to life. The conversation that ensues is highly individual.




The World Is a Carpet


Book Description

An unforgettable portrait of a place and a people shaped by centuries of art, trade, and war. In the middle of the salt-frosted Afghan desert, in a village so remote that Google can’t find it, a woman squats on top of a loom, making flowers bloom in the thousand threads she knots by hand. Here, where heroin is cheaper than rice, every day is a fast day. B-52s pass overhead—a sign of America’s omnipotence or its vulnerability, the villagers are unsure. They know, though, that the earth is flat—like a carpet. Anna Badkhen first traveled to this country in 2001, as a war correspondent. She has returned many times since, drawn by a land that geography has made a perpetual battleground, and by a people who sustain an exquisite tradition there. Through the four seasons in which a new carpet is woven by the women and children of Oqa, she immortalizes their way of life much as the carpet does—from the petal half-finished where a hungry infant needs care to the interruptions when the women trade sex jokes or go fill in for wedding musicians scared away by the Taliban. As Badkhen follows the carpet out into the world beyond, she leaves the reader with an indelible portrait of fates woven by centuries of art, war, and an ancient trade that ultimately binds the invaded to the invader.




The Bostonians


Book Description