Author: Thomas Vinciguerra Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA ISBN: 1608197301 Category : Literary Collections Languages : en Pages : 689
Book Description
"Maybe he doesn't like anything, but he can do everything," New Yorker editor Harold Ross once said of the magazine's brilliantly sardonic theater critic, Wolcott Gibbs. And, for over thirty years at the magazine, Gibbs did do just about everything. He turned out fiction and nonfiction, profiles and parodies, filled columns in "Talk of the Town" and "Notes and Comment," covered books, movies, nightlife and, of course, the theater. A friend of the Algonquin Round Table, Gibbs was renowned for his wit. (Perhaps his most enduring line is from a profile of Henry Luce, parodying Time magazine's house style: "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind.") While, in his day, Gibbs was equal in stature to E.B. White and James Thurber, today, he is little read. In Backward Ran Sentences, journalist Tom Vinciguerra introduces Gibbs and gathers a generous sampling of his finest work across an impressive range of genres, bringing a brilliant, multitalented writer of incomparable wit to a new age of readers.
Author: Thomas Vinciguerra Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393248747 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 580
Book Description
“Exuberant . . . elegantly conjures an evocative group dynamic.” —Sam Roberts, New York Times From its birth in 1925 to the early days of the Cold War, The New Yorker slowly but surely took hold as the country’s most prestigious, entertaining, and informative general-interest periodical. In Cast of Characters, Thomas Vinciguerra paints a portrait of the magazine’s cadre of charming, wisecracking, driven, troubled, brilliant writers and editors. He introduces us to Wolcott Gibbs, theater critic, all-around wit, and author of an infamous 1936 parody of Time magazine. We meet the demanding and eccentric founding editor Harold Ross, who would routinely tell his underlings, "I'm firing you because you are not a genius," and who once mailed a pair of his underwear to Walter Winchell, who had accused him of preferring to go bare-bottomed under his slacks. Joining the cast are the mercurial, blind James Thurber, a brilliant cartoonist and wildly inventive fabulist, and the enigmatic E. B. White—an incomparable prose stylist and Ross's favorite son—who married The New Yorker's formidable fiction editor, Katharine Angell. Then there is the dashing St. Clair McKelway, who was married five times and claimed to have no fewer than twelve personalities, but was nonetheless a superb reporter and managing editor alike. Many of these characters became legends in their own right, but Vinciguerra also shows how, as a group, The New Yorker’s inner circle brought forth a profound transformation in how life was perceived, interpreted, written about, and published in America. Cast of Characters may be the most revealing—and entertaining—book yet about the unique personalities who built what Ross called not a magazine but a "movement."
Author: Alan Brinkley Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0679741542 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 578
Book Description
Acclaimed historian Alan Brinkley gives us a sharply realized portrait of Henry Luce, arguably the most important publisher of the twentieth century. As the founder of Time, Fortune, and Life magazines, Luce changed the way we consume news and the way we understand our world. Born the son of missionaries, Henry Luce spent his childhood in rural China, yet he glimpsed a milieu of power altogether different at Hotchkiss and later at Yale. While working at a Baltimore newspaper, he and Brit Hadden conceived the idea of Time: a “news-magazine” that would condense the week’s events in a format accessible to increasingly busy members of the middle class. They launched it in 1923, and young Luce quickly became a publishing titan. In 1936, after Time’s unexpected success—and Hadden’s early death—Luce published the first issue of Life, to which millions soon subscribed. Brinkley shows how Luce reinvented the magazine industry in just a decade. The appeal of Life seemingly cut across the lines of race, class, and gender. Luce himself wielded influence hitherto unknown among journalists. By the early 1940s, he had come to see his magazines as vehicles to advocate for America’s involvement in the escalating international crisis, in the process popularizing the phrase “World War II.” In spite of Luce’s great success, happiness eluded him. His second marriage—to the glamorous playwright, politician, and diplomat Clare Boothe—was a shambles. Luce spent his later years in isolation, consumed at times with conspiracy theories and peculiar vendettas. The Publisher tells a great American story of spectacular achievement—yet it never loses sight of the public and private costs at which that achievement came.
Author: Michael Vecchione Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1466871741 Category : True Crime Languages : en Pages : 235
Book Description
A thrilling memoir from the former chief of the Brooklyn District Attorney's Rackets Division, who took on organized crime, crooked cops, and con men, rarely losing a case From 2001 to 2013, Mike Vecchione was chief of the Rackets Division in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, which was the largest urban prosecution agency in the country. Vecchione grappled with organized crime and dirty politicians, during which he supervised, investigated, and prosecuted major felony cases. Crooked Brooklyn is a gritty story of corruption, greed and law enforcement. Vecchione navigated a political minefield and expertly rose to the judicial challenges of directing investigations into a wide variety of crimes, from bribe-taking judges to cold-blooded killers. He was responsible for taking down: - Three state Supreme Court judges - One of the most powerful political bosses in the country - Two cops who worked as assassins for the Mafia - A State Assemblywoman - An FBI agent - A corrupt oral surgeon who was secretly selling bones from the recently deceased to medical supply companies Unbelievable and unforgettable, Crooked Brooklyn is filled with characters and stories ripped straight from the tabloids, great for fans who enjoy Law & Order, readers of true crime and those hungry for details about the system that keeps us safe.
Author: Ben Montgomery Publisher: Little, Brown Spark ISBN: 0316438049 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 255
Book Description
From Pulitzer Prize finalist Ben Montgomery, the story of a Texas man who, during the Great Depression, walked around the world -- backwards. Like most Americans at the time, Plennie Wingo was hit hard by the effects of the Great Depression. When the bank foreclosed on his small restaurant in Abilene, he found himself suddenly penniless with nowhere left to turn. After months of struggling to feed his family on wages he earned digging ditches in the Texas sun, Plennie decided it was time to do something extraordinary -- something to resurrect the spirit of adventure and optimism he felt he'd lost. He decided to walk around the world -- backwards. In The Man Who Walked Backward, Pulitzer Prize finalist Ben Montgomery charts Plennie's backwards trek across the America that gave rise to Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, and the New Deal. With the Dust Bowl and Great Depression as a backdrop, Montgomery follows Plennie across the Atlantic through Germany, Turkey, and beyond, and details the daring physical feats, grueling hardships, comical misadventures, and hostile foreign police he encountered along the way. A remarkable and quirky slice of Americana, The Man Who Walked Backward paints a rich and vibrant portrait of a jaw-dropping period of history.
Author: Wendan Li Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 9004360883 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 293
Book Description
In Grounding in Chinese Written Narrative Discourse Wendan Li offers a comprehensive and innovative account of how Mandarin Chinese, as a language without extensive morphological marking, highlights (or foregrounds) major events of a narrative and demotes (or backgrounds) other supporting descriptions. Qualitative and quantitative methods in the analysis and examinations of authentic written text provide extensive evidence to demonstrate that various types of morpho-syntactic devices are used in a wide range of structural units in Chinese to mark the distinction between foregrounding and backgrounding. The analysis paves the way for future studies to systematically approach grounding-related issues. The typological viewpoint adopted in the chapters serves well readers from both the Chinese tradition and other languages in discourse analysis.
Author: Franchesca Ramsey Publisher: Grand Central Publishing ISBN: 1538761041 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 243
Book Description
A sharp and timely exploration of race, online activism, and real communication in the age of social media rants, trolls, and call-out wars, from veteran video blogger and star of MTV's Decoded Franchesca Ramsey. Franchesca Ramsey didn't set out to be an activist. Or a comedian. Or a commentator on identity, race, and culture, really. But then her YouTube video "What White Girls Say . . . to Black Girls" went viral. Twelve million views viral. Faced with an avalanche of media requests, fan letters, and hate mail, she had two choices: Jump in and make her voice heard or step back and let others frame the conversation. After a crash course in social justice and more than a few foot-in-mouth moments, she realized she had a unique talent and passion for breaking down injustice in America in ways that could make people listen and engage. In her first book, Ramsey uses her own experiences as an accidental activist to explore the many ways we communicate with each other--from the highs of bridging gaps and making connections to the many pitfalls that accompany talking about race, power, sexuality, and gender in an unpredictable public space...the internet. Well, that Escalated Quickly includes Ramsey's advice on dealing with internet trolls and low-key racists, confessions about being a former online hater herself, and her personal hits and misses in activist debates with everyone from bigoted Facebook friends and misguided relatives to mainstream celebrities and YouTube influencers. With sharp humor and her trademark candor, Ramsey shows readers we can have tough conversations that move the dialogue forward, rather than backward, if we just approach them in the right way.
Author: Steven Brehe Publisher: ISBN: 9781940771496 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 356
Book Description
Brehe's Grammar Anatomy makes grammar accessible to general and specialist readers alike. This book provides an in-depth look at beginner grammar terms and concepts, providing clear examples with limited technical jargon. Whether for academic or personal use, Brehe's Grammar Anatomy is the perfect addition to any resource library.Features:Practice exercises at the end of each chapter, with answers in the back of the book, to help students test and correct their comprehensionFull glossary and index with cross-referencesEasy-to-read language supports readers at every learning stage
Author: Amanda Grace Publisher: North Star Editions, Inc. ISBN: 0738728527 Category : Young Adult Fiction Languages : en Pages : 132
Book Description
At the beginning of senior year, Ann was a smiling, straight-A student with friends and a future. Then she met a haunted young man named Connor. Only she can heal his emotional scars; only he could make her feel so loved—and needed. Just one mistake could trigger Connor’s rage, a violent storm damaging everything—and everyone—in its path.
Author: Thomas Vinciguerra
Author: Thomas Vinciguerra
Author: Alan Brinkley
Author: Michael Vecchione
Author: Ben Montgomery
Author: Wendan Li
Author: Franchesca Ramsey
Author: Price
Author: Steven Brehe
Author: Amanda Grace