The Quiet Limit


Book Description

I had come to terms with my inability to change whatever it was at this point. It was coming whether I knew how it would happen or not. What if you knew what year you’d die? Since she could first comprehend the meaning of death Lai has known she’d only live to see eighteen years. In her secluded community, scientists calculate residents’ life expectancies at birth and one’s place within society is determined based on their lifespan. Tragically, Lai’s anticipated Year of Death has defined her as someone with little value to society. When her eighteenth birthday comes and goes, she knows she’s living on borrowed time and begins to emotionally withdraw and resign herself to her fate. That’s when Lai discovers something that shocks her to her core and forces her to face the reality that the controlled, peaceful, productive community she knows is hiding something deeply sinister. Set in a speculative society that is so imaginatively conceived we’re never quite sure if it’s utopian or dystopian, The Quiet Limit gives us a heartbroken protagonist at the most heightened and emotional moment of her life and sets her on an urgent, dangerous quest to find answers before her time is up.




The Quiet Limit of the World


Book Description

San Francisco in 1978 is a place of urban chaos. But for Diego Contreras it represents a dream of artistic success. As a recent college graduate from an immigrant family, he moves from Los Angeles to find something worth believing in and meets Saloma Sevilla, a wealthy Filipino-Chinese graduate student.Diego and Saloma develop an intense relationship through a series of adventures and misadventures. They must overcome the barriers of social class, family life, and past sexual abuse, as well as deal with a cast of quirky 1970s characters— drug-addled creative writing students, pompous professors, hangars-on in a boarding house, and tiresome family members.The City of San Francisco also shapes them. The mayor and city supervisor have been assassinated, an active shooter takes hostages in a downtown office building, the “ White Night” riots have engulfed the Castro District and City Hall, and the Weather Underground has bombed a police station. Diego and Saloma must negotiate all this and come to terms with their own quiet limit of the world.




Tennyson Among the Novelists


Book Description

Until now, the study of literary allusion has focused on allusions made by poets to other poets. In Tennyson Among the Novelists, John Morton presents the first book-length account of the presence of a poet's work in works of prose fiction. As well as shedding new light on the poems of Tennyson and their reception history, Morton covers a wide variety of novelists including Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh, and Andrew O'Hagan, offering a fresh look at their approach to writing. Morton shows how Tennyson's poetry, despite its frequent depreciation by critics, has survived as a vivifying presence in the novel from the Victorian period to the present day.




The Silent Spaces


Book Description

Her whole life, Lai was told that she’d only live to see eighteen years. In the seemingly utopian community she grew up in, scientists calculated residents’ life expectancies at birth, and that number defined their place within their society. When Lai was given the number eighteen in a community where numbers over one hundred are the norm, her life was considered all but meaningless. As her eighteenth birthday approached, Lai became determined not to be defined by her death date, and then everything started to unravel. After escaping the only life she’d ever known, in a community that she had been taught was all that was left of humanity, Lai is now faced with something even more terrifying: the truth. The Silent Spaces picks up where The Quiet Limit left off, following Lai as she navigates past losses, present confusion, and future uncertainties. She must find a way to survive, all while refusing to give up on those she left behind.




Dynamics of Desacralization


Book Description

The idea of desacralization has become almost commonplace, attributing to the word the rejection of what is sacred. One might think that it is strictly connected to theology and its system, or suppose that it implies the relationship human beings have with anything that can express a denial of the spiritual part of life. The concept of desacralization has numerous meanings, either from a philosophical or a literary viewpoint. The scholars' investigation of Dynamics of Desacralization has made this collection of essays rich and varied, revealing new worlds the different authors have created. What they do is to narrate various types of desacralization interrogating the nature of novels, poems or works of art; certain aspects of being are revealed through various expressions, engaging the multiple levels and the meaning of desacralization providing an articulation and interpretation of it.




The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh ( 50 Books). Illustrated


Book Description

The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh is a comprehensive collection that brings together 50 books by the acclaimed British author. This beautifully illustrated edition features some of Waugh's most famous works, including "Brideshead Revisited," "A Handful of Dust," "Scoop," "Decline and Fall," "Sword of Honor," and numerous others. In "Brideshead Revisited," readers are transported to the captivating world of the aristocratic Marchmain family, exploring themes of love, faith, and the passing of time. "A Handful of Dust" offers a scathing satire of the English upper class, highlighting the disintegration of a marriage and the pursuit of purpose in a seemingly empty existence. "Scoop" takes a humorous and biting look at the world of journalism and foreign correspondents, while "Decline and Fall" follows the misadventures of a young man navigating the absurdities of early 20th-century British society. With its witty prose, sharp social commentary, and insightful characterizations, this collection showcases the breadth and depth of Waugh's literary genius. The reader is taken on a journey through various settings, from the grandeur of Oxford and the English countryside to the tumultuous landscapes of war-torn Europe. Waugh's works deftly blend comedy, tragedy, and profound observations on human nature. "The Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh" offers an immersive reading experience, allowing fans of the author and new readers alike to explore the entire range of his remarkable storytelling. It is a testament to Waugh's enduring influence and enduring legacy in the world of literature. The Novels Decline and Fall Vile Bodies Black Mischief A Handful of Dust Scoop Put Out More Flags Brideshead Revisited The Loved One Helena Men at Arms Officers and Gentlemen The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold Unconditional Surrender The Sword of Honour The Short Stories The Autobiography A Little Learning




The Loved One


Book Description

"A work of art as rich and subtle and unnerving as anything its author has ever done" (New Yorker), The Loved One is Evelyn Waugh's cutting satire of 1940s California and the Anglo-American cultural divide. Following the death of a friend, the poet and pets' mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering the artificial Hollywood paradise of the Whispering Glades Memorial Park. Within its golden gates, death, American-style, is wrapped up and sold like a package holiday--and Dennis gets drawn into a bizarre love triangle with Aimée Thanatogenos, a naïve Californian corpse beautician, and Mr. Joyboy, a master of the embalmer's art. Waugh's dark and savage satire depicts a world where reputation, love, and death cost a very great deal.




British Novelists in Hollywood, 1935–1965


Book Description

British Novelists in Hollywood, 1935-1965 calls attention to the shifting grounds of cultural expression by highlighting Hollywood as a site that unsettled definitions and narratives of colonialism and national identity for prominent British novelists such as Christopher Isherwood, P.G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, and J.B. Priestley.




Black Mischief


Book Description

In four short key works, an African state goes into a political tailspin, journalism comes under scrutiny, the California mortuary business is shown in a comic light, and a man goes mad on board an ocean liner.




Virgil and Isaiah


Book Description