Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 214
Book Description
The Naughty-Naughtian
Author: Republic of Detours
Author: Scott BorchertPublisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374719055
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice | Winner of the New Deal Book Award An immersive account of the New Deal project that created state-by-state guidebooks to America, in the midst of the Great Depression—and employed some of the biggest names in American letters The plan was as idealistic as it was audacious—and utterly unprecedented. Take thousands of hard-up writers and put them to work charting a country on the brink of social and economic collapse, with the aim of producing a series of guidebooks to the then forty-eight states—along with hundreds of other publications dedicated to cities, regions, and towns—while also gathering reams of folklore, narratives of formerly enslaved people, and even recipes, all of varying quality, each revealing distinct sensibilities. All this was the singular purview of the Federal Writers’ Project, a division of the Works Progress Administration founded in 1935 to employ jobless writers, from once-bestselling novelists and acclaimed poets to the more dubiously qualified. The FWP took up the lofty goal of rediscovering America in words and soon found itself embroiled in the day’s most heated arguments regarding radical politics, racial inclusion, and the purpose of writing—forcing it to reckon with the promises and failures of both the New Deal and the American experiment itself. Scott Borchert’s Republic of Detours tells the story of this raucous and remarkable undertaking by delving into the experiences of key figures and tracing the FWP from its optimistic early days to its dismemberment by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. We observe notable writers at their day jobs, including Nelson Algren, broke and smarting from the failure of his first novel; Zora Neale Hurston, the most widely published Black woman in the country; and Richard Wright, who arrived in the FWP’s chaotic New York City office on an upward career trajectory courtesy of the WPA. Meanwhile, Ralph Ellison, Studs Terkel, John Cheever, and other future literary stars found encouragement and security on the FWP payroll. By way of these and other stories, Borchert illuminates an essentially noble enterprise that sought to create a broad and inclusive self-portrait of America at a time when the nation’s very identity and future were thrown into question. As the United States enters a new era of economic distress, political strife, and culture-industry turmoil, this book’s lessons are urgent and strong.
Never a Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren
Author: Colin AsherPublisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393244520
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 560
Book Description
This definitive biography reclaims Nelson Algren as a towering literary figure and finally unravels the enigma of his disappearance from American letters. For a time, Nelson Algren was America’s most famous author, lauded by the likes of Richard Wright and Ernest Hemingway. Millions bought his books. Algren’s third novel, The Man with the Golden Arm, won the first National Book Award, and Frank Sinatra starred in the movie. But despite Algren’s talent, he abandoned fiction and fell into obscurity. The cause of his decline was never clear. Some said he drank his talent away; others cited writer’s block. The truth, hidden in the pages of his books, is far more complicated and tragic. Now, almost forty years after Algren’s death, Colin Asher finally captures the full, novelistic story of his life in a magisterial biography set against mid-twentieth-century American politics and culture. Drawing from interviews, archival correspondence, and the most complete version of Algren’s 886-page FBI file ever released, Colin Asher portrays Algren as a dramatic iconoclast. A member of the Communist Party in the 1930s, Algren used his writing to humanize Chicago’s underclass, while excoriating the conservative radicalism of the McCarthy era. Asher traces Algren’s development as a thinker, his close friendship and falling out with Richard Wright, and his famous affair with Simone de Beauvoir. Most intriguingly, Asher uncovers the true cause of Algren’s artistic exile: a reckless creative decision that led to increased FBI scrutiny and may have caused a mental breakdown. In his second act, Algren was a vexing figure who hid behind a cynical facade. He called himself a “journalist” and a “loser,” though many still considered him one of the greatest living American authors. An inspiration to writers such as Hunter S. Thompson, Martha Gellhorn, Jimmy Breslin, Betty Friedan, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, Russell Banks, and Thomas Pynchon, Algren nevertheless struggled to achieve recognition, and died just as his career was on the verge of experiencing a renaissance. Never a Lovely So Real offers an exquisitely detailed, engrossing portrait of a master who, as esteemed literary critic Maxwell Geismar wrote, was capable of suggesting “the whole contour of a human life in a few terse pages.”
The Bezos Blueprint
Author: Carmine GalloPublisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250278341
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 195
Book Description
The communication and leadership secrets of Jeff Bezos and how to master them, from the bestselling author of Talk Like Ted. Jeff Bezos is a dreamer who turned a bold idea into the world’s most influential company, a brand that likely touches your life every day. As a student of leadership and communication, he learned to elevate the way Amazonians write, collaborate, innovate, pitch, and present. He created a scalable model that grew from a small team in a Seattle garage to one of the world’s largest employers. The Bezos Blueprint by Carmine Gallo reveals the communication strategies that Jeff Bezos pioneered to fuel Amazon’s astonishing growth. As one of the most innovative and visionary entrepreneurs of our time, Bezos reimagined the way leaders write, speak, and motivate teams and customers. The communication tools Bezos created are so effective that former Amazonians who worked directly with Bezos adopted them as blueprints to start their own companies. Now, these tools are available to you.
The American Guide
Author: Henry Garfield AlsbergPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Automobile travel
Languages : en
Pages : 1348
Book Description
Freedom as a Service
Author: Evgeny MorozovPublisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 9780374280284
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
The Post-Widget Society
Author: Lawrence H. SummersPublisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 9780374115654
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Lawrence H. Summers presents a new paradigm for thinking about the current economic and technological revolution We are buffeted by the sense that everything is accelerating: Digital technology is changing the way we work, shop, and socialize. And yet for all the talk about disruptive innovations, economic growth is largely stagnant. We are told that with new technologies average citizens are empowered as never before, and yet wide swaths of the population feel powerless and can no longer count on stable careers and a better life for their children. As Lawrence H. Summers shows in The Post-Widget Society, these are the paradoxes that define the economic revolution that is transforming our world. At the heart of this revolution are two dramatic developments in Western economies: the declining significance of widgets (mass-produced goods) and the rise of design goods (products that cost a lot to design but little to produce); and the controversial prospect of secular stagnation, the long-term phenomenon of negligible economic growth and depressed employment in a dynamic market economy. Summers’s trenchant analysis of these trends reveals that they have profound implications not only for the future of jobs and widening income inequality but also for the nature of the state and the very stability of society. A bold, pathbreaking book by one of our most important economists, The Post-Widget Society is necessary reading for every American concerned about our economic and political future.
Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time
Author: Ira KatznelsonPublisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0871404508
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 720
Book Description
An exploration of the New Deal era highlights the politicians and pundits of the time, many of whom advocated for questionable positions, including separation of the races and an American dictatorship.
The Sixties
Author: Edmund WilsonPublisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466899697
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 932
Book Description
The last of Edmund Wilson's posthumously published journals turned out to be one of his major books, The Sixties: the Last Journal, 1960–1972--a personal history that is also brilliant social comedy and an anatomy of the times. Wilson catches the flavor of an international elite -- Stravinsky, Auden, Andre Malraux, and Isaiah Berlin -- as well as the New York literati and the Kennedy White House, but he never strays too far from the common life, whether noting the routines of his normal neighbors or the struggle of his own aging. "Candor and intelligence come through on every page--in this always absorbing journal by perhaps the last great man of American letters." - Kirkus Reviews
The Kronstadt Rebellion
Author: Alexander BerkmanPublisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 54
Book Description
This is a concise history of the Kronstadt rebellion, a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors and civilians against the Bolshevik government in the Russian SFSR port city of Kronstadt. The writer accurately explains the events that led to the movement and occurred during it. Content includes: Labor Disturbances in Petrograd The Kronstadt Movement Bolsheviks campaign against Kronstadt The Aims of Kronstadt Bolshevik Ultimatum to Kronstadt The First Shot The Defeat of Kronstadt