Impossible Country


Book Description

'Here is art which conceals art, and intellect which conceals intellect, so that by the end of the book one feels that one understands something one had not understood before. Mr Hall is witty and amusing, but not snide; he has a lightness of touch which allows him to write of extremely serious matters without solemnity; he knows how to convey a great deal in a few words' Sunday Telegraph 'He is an observant and witty writer...you believe implicitly that he has met the people he writes about, and that they said what he quotes them as saying' Sunday Times




Eloquent Science


Book Description

Mary Grace Soccio. My writing could not please this kindhearted woman, no matter how hard I tried. Although Gifed and Talented seventh-grade math posed no problem for me, the same was not true for Mrs. Soccio’s English class. I was frustrated that my frst assignment only netted me a C. I worked harder, making re- sion afer revision, a concept I had never really put much faith in before. At last, I produced an essay that seemed the apex of what I was capable of wr- ing. Although the topic of that essay is now lost to my memory, the grade I received was not: a B?. “Te best I could do was a B??” Te realization sank in that maybe I was not such a good writer. In those days, my youthful hubris did not understand abouc t apacity bui- ing. In other words, being challenged would result in my intellectual growth— an academic restatement of Nietzsche’s “What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.” Consequently, I asked to be withdrawn from Gifed and Talented English in the eighth grade.




The Annenbergs


Book Description

"This is the colorful and dramatic biography of two of America's most controversial entrepreneurs: Moses Louis Annenberg, 'the racing wire king, ' who built his fortune in racketeering, invested it in publishing, and lost much of it in the biggest tax evasion case in United States history; and his son, Walter, launcher of TV Guide and Seventeen magazines and former ambassador to Great Britain."--Jacket.




Understanding the City Through Its Margins


Book Description

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Notes on Contributors -- Acknowledgements -- 1 The city and its regulations: Unexpected margins -- Part I Space and state regulation: The urban interstices -- 2 Markets and marginality in Beirut -- 3 The tremendous making and unmaking of the peripheries in current Istanbul -- 4 Resilient forms of urbanity on the margins? Al-Kherba: A vivid market in a damaged section of the medina of Tunis -- 5 Whose margins? Marginality, poverty and the moral geography of pre-Soviet Bukhara -- 6 On the margins of the city: Izmir Prison in the late Ottoman Empire -- Part II Diversity and moral policing: Making claims through marginalisation -- 7 'Texas': An off-centre district at the heart of nightlife in Odienné -- 8 The Manyema in colonial Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) between urban margins and regional connections -- 9 On the margins: Suburban space and religious deviancy in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur -- 10 Ethnic differentiation and conflict dynamics: Uzbeks' marginalisation and non-marginalisation in southern Kyrgyzstan -- Index




Moon-face and Other Stories


Book Description

JACK LONDON (1876-1916), American novelist, born in San Francisco, the son of an itinerant astrologer and a spiritualist mother. He grew up in poverty, scratching a living in various legal and illegal ways -robbing the oyster beds, working in a canning factory and a jute mill, serving aged 17 as a common sailor, and taking part in the Klondike gold rush of 1897. This various experience provided the material for his works, and made him a socialist. "The son of the Wolf" (1900), the first of his collections of tales, is based upon life in the Far North, as is the book that brought him recognition, "The Call of the Wild" (1903), which tells the story of the dog Buck, who, after his master ́s death, is lured back to the primitive world to lead a wolf pack. Many other tales of struggle, travel, and adventure followed, including "The Sea-Wolf" (1904), "White Fang" (1906), "South Sea Tales" (1911), and "Jerry of the South Seas" (1917). One of London ́s most interesting novels is the semi-autobiographical "Martin Eden" (1909). He also wrote socialist treatises, autobiographical essays, and a good deal of journalism.




Forster


Book Description

Manslaughter, blackmail, violent sex, sudden death: out of materials which might have served a lesser author as the basis for mere melodrama, E. M. Forster created literary vehicles which convey the reader with near-celestial ease to psychological realms as diverse as the London drawing-room and the Indian cave of revelation. The essays collected here range from early commentaries introducing Forster to an American audience, to more recent essays illuminating the subtlety and resourcefulness of his fictional method, the acute modernity of his moral and intellectual concerns. Disputing a long-held view that Forster is intellectually a Victorian, in bondage to the liberal pieties he portrayed so well, these critics point to his capacity for rigorous self-scrutiny and detached observation of those very institutions and ideas so often associated with him. As they reveal new facets of Forster's accomplishment, these essays indicate why the twentieth century now recognizes him as one of its major literary figures. -- From publisher's description.




Anniversary Essays on Alexander Pope's 'The Rape of the Lock'


Book Description

Alexander Pope’s heroi-comical, mock-epic poem, The Rape of the Lock, continues to sparkle after three hundred years as a peerless gem in the canon of English literature. In celebration of its tercentenary, this collection brings together ten eminent scholars with new perspectives on the poem. Their approaches reflect the vast range of interpretation of Pope’s text, from discussions of religion, gender, and eighteenth-century biological science to an interview with Sophie Gee about her novelization of the poem in The Scandal of the Season. These stimulating analyses will be essential reading for students and teachers of The Rape of the Lock and a valuable resource for investigating eighteenth-century culture.




Language Awareness


Book Description

- Engaging students with the power of language in everyday life. Ideal for the composition classroom, the thematic focus on language in Language Awareness allows students to study compelling topics such as "Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Language" (Chapter 8) and "The Language of Persuasion: Politics and Advertising" (Chapter 12), while fostering an appreciation of the richness and vitality of the English language. Chosen particularly for their insight and appeal to students, the 70 readings -- by well-known writers and language experts -- encourage students to think carefully about the many dimensions of language, culture, and communication, and to use their own language more responsibly and effectively in speech and in writing. - 4 full chapters on writing. Language Awareness offers more writing coverage than any other reader of its kind, and this edition includes four new chapters. Along with three student papers, these 70 pages on the essentials of college writing introduce students to thewriting process and cover the types of writing most often assigned to first year college students: writing from experience, writing from reading, and writing from research (with MLA style documentation). - Documents for analysis and writing after every essay and every chapter. Called Language in Action, the documents that appear after every single essay include advertisements, screen-shots of Web pages, cartoons, corporate documents, poems, magazine quizzes, humorous e




Adventuring Among Words


Book Description




German Men of Letters


Book Description