Author: Peter Orner Publisher: Catapult ISBN: 1646222040 Category : Literary Collections Languages : en Pages : 321
Book Description
Longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay A new collection of pieces on literature and life by the author of Am I Alone Here?, a finalist for the NBCC Award for Criticism Stationed in the South Pacific during World War II, Seymour Orner wrote a letter every day to his wife, Lorraine. She seldom responded, leading him to plead in 1945, “Another day and still no word from you.” Seventy years later, Peter Orner writes in response to his grandfather’s plea: “Maybe we read because we seek that word from someone, from anyone.” From the acclaimed fiction writer about whom Dwight Garner of The New York Times wrote, “You know from the second you pick him up that he’s the real deal,” comes Still No Word from You, a unique chain of essays and intimate stories that meld the lived life and the reading life. For Orner, there is no separation. Covering such well-known writers as Lorraine Hansberry, Primo Levi, and Marilynne Robinson, as well as other greats like Maeve Brennan and James Alan McPherson, Orner’s highly personal take on literature alternates with his own true stories of loss and love, hope and despair. In his mother’s copy of A Coney Island of the Mind, he’s stopped short by a single word in the margin, “YES!”—which leads him to conjure his mother at twenty-three. He stops reading Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Beginning of Spring three quarters of the way through because he knows that finishing the novel will leave him bereft. Orner’s solution is to start again from the beginning to slow the inevitable heartache. Still No Word from You is a book for anyone for whom reading is as essential as breathing.
Author: John Mills Publisher: FriesenPress ISBN: 1460256549 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 212
Book Description
Readers who admire John Mills’ writing will be happy that he has broken a long silence with Still No Word From Nancy. This book includes three personal essays in the manner of Mills’ well-received Thank your Mother for the Rabbits, while a fourth—which relates the experience of walking the pilgrim’s route to Santiago de Compostela—employs a different, but no less entertaining, narrative technique.
Author: Wendy Louise Call Publisher: U of Nebraska Press ISBN: 0803235100 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 349
Book Description
Wendy Call visited the Isthmus of Tehuantepec?the lush sliver of land connecting the Yucatan Peninsula to the rest of Mexico?for the first time in 1997. She found herself in the midst of a storied land, a place Mexicans call their country'sø?little waist,? a place long known for its strong women, spirited marketplaces, and deep sense of independence. She also landed in the middle of a ferocious battle over plans to industrialize the region, where most people still fish, farm, and work in the forests. In the decade that followed her first visit, Call witnessed farmland being paved for new highways, oil spilling into rivers, and forests burning down. Through it all, local people fought to protect their lands and their livelihoods?and their very lives.ø ø Call?s story, No Word for Welcome, invites readers into the homes, classrooms, storefronts, and fishing boats of the isthmus, as well as the mahogany-paneled high-rise offices of those striving to control the region. With timely and invaluable insights into the development battle, Call shows that the people who have suffered most from economic globalization have some of the clearest ideas about how we can all survive it.
Author: R. S. Gwynn Publisher: ISBN: Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 176
Book Description
R. S. Gwynn is America's greatest poetry satirist. This book collects the finest poems from the author's previous five collections -- all printed in limited editions, and now long out of print. A leading figure in the renaissance of form and narrative in American poetry, Gwynn is a master of song and storytelling. A rare, true wit.
Author: Evan T. Pritchard Publisher: Council Oak Books ISBN: 9781571781031 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
A descendant of a Micmac chief, the author presents a book on Native American spirituality. Outlining the Seven Points of Respect for Native American ceremonies, he goes on to describe their way of life: They don't write in metaphor, they speak it; they don't recite poetry, they live it.
Author: Peter Orner Publisher: Catapult ISBN: 1936787261 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
This National Book Critics Circle Award is “an entrancing attempt to catch what falls between: the irreducibly personal, messy, even embarrassing ways reading and living bleed into each other, which neither literary criticism nor autobiography ever quite acknowledges.” —The New York Times “Stories, both my own and those I’ve taken to heart, make up whoever it is that I’ve become,” Peter Orner writes in this collection of essays about reading, writing, and living. Orner reads and writes everywhere he finds himself: a hospital cafeteria, a coffee shop in Albania, or a crowded bus in Haiti. The result is a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir. Among the many writers Orner addresses are Isaac Babel and Zora Neale Hurston, both of whom told their truths and were silenced; Franz Kafka, who professed loneliness but craved connection; Robert Walser, who spent the last twenty-three years of his life in a Swiss insane asylum, working at being crazy; and Juan Rulfo, who practiced the difficult art of silence. Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, Yasunari Kawabata, Saul Bellow, Mavis Gallant, John Edgar Wideman, William Trevor, and Václav Havel make appearances, as well as the poet Herbert Morris--about whom almost nothing is known. An elegy for an eccentric late father, and the end of a marriage, Am I Alone Here? is also a celebration of the possibility of renewal. At once personal and panoramic, this book will inspire readers to return to the essential stories of their own lives.
Author: Randall Kennedy Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0307538915 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 210
Book Description
Randall Kennedy takes on not just a word, but our laws, attitudes, and culture with bracing courage and intelligence—with a range of reference that extends from the Jim Crow south to Chris Rock routines and the O. J. Simpson trial. It’s “the nuclear bomb of racial epithets,” a word that whites have employed to wound and degrade African Americans for three centuries. Paradoxically, among many Black people it has become a term of affection and even empowerment. The word, of course, is nigger, and in this candid, lucidly argued book the distinguished legal scholar Randall Kennedy traces its origins, maps its multifarious connotations, and explores the controversies that rage around it. Should Blacks be able to use nigger in ways forbidden to others? Should the law treat it as a provocation that reduces the culpability of those who respond to it violently? Should it cost a person his job, or a book like Huckleberry Finn its place on library shelves?
Author: Clint Smith Publisher: Hachette UK ISBN: 0349701164 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR A NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NON-FICTION 'A beautifully readable reminder of how much of our urgent, collective history resounds in places all around us that have been hidden in plain sight.' Afua Hirsch, author of Brit(ish) Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks - those that are honest about the past and those that are not - which offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping a nation's collective history, and our own. It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving more than four hundred people. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola, a former plantation-turned-maximum-security prison in Louisiana that is filled with Black men who work across the 18,000-acre land for virtually no pay. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers. A deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our most essential stories are hidden in plain view - whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth or entire neighbourhoods like downtown Manhattan, where the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women and children has been deeply imprinted. How the Word is Passed is a landmark book that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in making sense of the United States. Chosen as a book of the year by President Barack Obama, The Economist, Time, the New York Times and more, fans of Brit(ish) and Natives will be utterly captivated. What readers are saying about How the Word is Passed: 'How the Word Is Passed frees history, frees humanity to reckon honestly with the legacy of slavery. We need this book.' Ibram X. Kendi, Number One New York Times bestselling author 'An extraordinary contribution to the way we understand ourselves.' Julian Lucas, New York Times Book Review 'The detail and depth of the storytelling is vivid and visceral, making history present and real.' Hope Wabuke, NPR 'This isn't just a work of history, it's an intimate, active exploration of how we're still constructing and distorting our history." Ron Charles, The Washington Post 'In re-examining neighbourhoods, holidays and quotidian sites, Smith forces us to reconsider what we think we know about American history.' Time 'A history of slavery in this country unlike anything you've read before.' Entertainment Weekly 'A beautifully written, evocative, and timely meditation on the way slavery is commemorated in the United States.' Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
Author: Julianna Joy Klassen Publisher: FriesenPress ISBN: 1039134122 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 274
Book Description
But He answered and said, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4 No Word Wasted is a collection of valuable life lessons with a unique perspective from God’s Word. Thirty-five stand-alone studies are presented in a personal, engaging, and relatable manner—similar to how Jesus taught, often through parables, during His ministry—and are based on Bible characters, nature object lessons, and scriptural principles, often examining lesser-known but profound passages. Each study ends with a mini commentary based on one significant word from the lesson that the author has chosen to give readers a unique perspective on the topic. Whether you are a new or lifelong Christian, No Word Wasted will help you: • Grow in your faith • Understand God’s character • Be inspired to read the Bible • Develop a better comprehension of scripture • Incorporate His Word into everyday living • Know God’s peace and unconditional love for you
Author: Peter Orner
Author: John Mills
Author: Wendy Louise Call
Author: R. S. Gwynn
Author: Evan T. Pritchard
Author: Peter Orner
Author: Randall Kennedy
Author: Luise Mühlbach
Author: Clint Smith
Author: Julianna Joy Klassen