Limbo, and Other Essays; To which is now added Ariadne in Mantua


Book Description

This is no excuse for the optimistic extermination of distinguished men. It is indeed most difficult to kill genius, but there are a hundred ways of killing its possessors; and with them as much of their work as they have left undone. What pictures might Giorgione not have painted but for the lady, the rival, or the plague, whichever it was that killed him! Mozart could assuredly have given us a half-dozen more Don Giovannis if he had had fewer lessons, fewer worries, better food; nay, by his miserable death the world has lost, methinks, more even than that—a commanding influence which would have kept music, for a score of years, earnest and masterly but joyful: Rossini would not have run to seed, and Beethoven's ninth symphony might have been a genuine "Hymn to Joy" if only Mozart, the Apollo of musicians, had, for a few years more, flooded men's souls with radiance. A similar thing is said of Rafael; but his followers were mediocre, and he himself lacked personality, so that many a better example might be brought.




My 1980s and Other Essays


Book Description

"A new book of essays by the cultural critic Wayne Koestenbaum, author of The Queen's Throat and Jackie Under My Skin"--




Jaunting on the Scoriac Tempests and Other Essays on Fantastic Literature


Book Description

In this new collection of essays, well-known critic Brian Stableford presents twelve pieces on science-fiction and fantasy writers M. P. Shiel, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Humphry Davy, Robert Hunt, Vernon Lee, J. G. Ballard, James Morrow, Dean Koontz, and Terry Pratchett. Complete with detailed index.




Lady Limbo


Book Description

One Friday evening Daniel de Luc, an elusive crime writer with a deep love of poetry, disappears from a Camps Bay apartment while cooking pasta. His wife Paola, desperately worried after days of hearing nothing, is contacted by an eccentric stranger who claims to have known her missing husband under a different name and warns her not to look for him. Paola soon learns that her husband was involved in the shadowy world of the international sex industry, where well-heeled women pay men to become the anonymous fathers of their children. As her neat, controlled existence is turned inside out, Paola struggles to keep a level head and find her own humanity while trying to outwit her enemies and stay alive. The result is a fast-paced thriller that shifts between Cape Town and Paris, blending realism with the fantastic and pitting love against the attraction of sexual adventure.




The Mansions of Limbo


Book Description

Bestselling author Dominick Dunne, who chronicles the escapades, excesses, and eccentricities of high society for Vanity Fair, offers fifteen provocative portraits of some of the most luminous figures of the decade . . . profiles of the movie legend who remains the only divorced wife of a U.S. president; the pretty singing star who fell in love with a notorious mobster; the brilliant photographer who took Dunne's picture weeks before succumbing to AIDS . . . sketches that detail the lavish wedding-that-never-was between an heiress and a counterfeit prince; the incarceration of a high-flying financier; and the brutal slaying of a film mogul and his sife, allegedly by their own two sons. Filled with pathos and wit and the twenty-four-carat insight of a society insider, The Mansions of Limbo offers a peek into a rarified world there nothing is ever enough.




Writing Out of Limbo


Book Description

Crossing borders and boundaries, countries and cultures, they are the children of the military, diplomatic corps, international business, education and missions communities. They are called Third Culture Kids or Global Nomads, and the many benefits of their lifestyle – expanded worldview, multiplicity of languages, tolerance for difference – are often mitigated by recurring losses – of relationships, of stability, of permanent roots. They are part of an accelerating demographic that is only recently coming into visibility. In this groundbreaking collection, writers from around the world address issues of language acquisition and identity formation, childhood mobility and adaptation, memory and grief, and the artist’s struggle to articulate the experience of growing up global. And, woven like a thread through the entire collection, runs the individual’s search for belonging and a place called “home.” This book provides a major leap in understanding what it’s like to grow up among worlds. It is invaluable reading for the new global age.




The Oxford Book of Latin American Essays


Book Description

An intriguing collection of more than 70 Latin American essays, some never before translated into English, gives us the whole spectrum of concerns that have animated some of the greatest writers of our time--from Andres Bello, Pablo Neruda, and Alfonso Reyes to Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Rosario Ferre--an assembly confident, ingenious, aware.




Limbo


Book Description

In Limbo, award-winning journalist Alfred Lubrano identifies and describes an overlooked cultural phenomenon: the internal conflict within individuals raised in blue-collar homes, now living white-collar lives. These people often find that the values of the working class are not sufficient guidance to navigate the white-collar world, where unspoken rules reflect primarily upper-class values. Torn between the world they were raised in and the life they aspire too, they hover between worlds, not quite accepted in either. Himself the son of a Brooklyn bricklayer, Lubrano informs his account with personal experience and interviews with other professionals living in limbo. For millions of Americans, these stories will serve as familiar reminders of the struggles of achieving the American Dream.




Limbo


Book Description

An irreverent and erudite essay on being stuck and its opposites, from the author of Pretentiousness: Why it Matters.