Now hailed as an American classic, Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller’s masterpiece, was banned as obscene in this country for twenty-seven years after its first publication in Paris in 1934. Only a historic court ruling that changed American censorship standards, ushering in a new era of freedom and frankness in modern literature, permitted the publication of this first volume of Miller’s famed mixture of memoir and fiction, which chronicles with unapologetic gusto the bawdy adventures of a young expatriate writer, his friends, and the characters they meet in Paris in the 1930s. Tropic of Cancer is now considered, as Norman Mailer said, "one of the ten or twenty great novels of our century." Views: 626
Enjoy this riveting tale. Lucky Martin is a daredevil test pilot who's perfected the design for a new bomber plane that the Navy is sure to buy. What makes the plane unique is its ability to dive straight down at seven miles a minute and suddenly level off—stressing the wings at nine times the plane's weight—without breaking apart.
Unfortunately for Lucky, hostile foreign powers are determined to see him fail so they can scoop up the plane's design for their own use. Following a string of "accidents" which nearly kill him, Lucky Martin becomes "Unlucky" Martin, making his future look very luckless indeed, unless he can stay alive to outwit the enemy. "Primo pulp fiction." —Booklist Views: 625
THE WORLD by which they were now surrounded gave them an eerie feeling. They were familiar with the wide open spaces of the universe or the inhospitable surfaces of other worlds but rarely ventured into the deep regions of oceans. Although deepsea cruises in land-sea-air transporters had been part of their training they had assumed they would spend all their time in the comfort of a spaceship and never seriously contemplated a life underwater.As soon as they entered the water the observer had detected small semi-metallic objects moving in the vicinity of the ship. The way they moved indicated that they must be steered. Untcher tried to contact them with the short-range intercom but received no answer.The unidentified boats finally left as if they had been suddenly called back. What happens next is part of the exciting plot of– ENEMY IN THE DARK! Views: 625
From the writer who shocked and delighted the world with his novels Lolita, Pale Fire,
and Ada, or Ardor, and so many others, comes a magnificent collection of stories. Written between the 1920s and 1950s, these sixty-five tales--eleven of which have been translated into English for the first time--display all the shades of Nabokov's imagination. They range from sprightly fables to bittersweet tales of loss, from claustrophobic exercises in horror to a connoisseur's samplings of the table of human folly. Read as a whole, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov offers and intoxicating draft of the master's genius, his devious wit, and his ability to turn language into an instrument of ecstasy.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 624
In her first ever story collection, Jansson revealed the clarity of vision and light philosophical touch that were to become her hallmark. From the good listener who begins to betray the secrets confided to her, to vignettes of a city storm or the slow halting of spring, these stories are gifts of originality and depth. Views: 624
At the height of his powers, Pablo Picasso was the artist as revolutionary, breaking through the niceties of form in order to mount a direct challenge to the values of his time. At the height of his fame, he was the artist as royalty: incalculably wealthy, universally idolized−and wholly isolated.
In this stunning critical assessment, John Berger−one of this century's most insightful cultural historians−trains his penetrating gaze upon this most prodigious and enigmatic painter and on the Spanish landscape and very particular culture that shpaed his life and work. Writing with a novelist's sensuous evocation of character and detail, and drawing on an erudition that embraces history, politics, and art, Berger follows Picasso from his childhood in Malaga to the Blue Period and Cubism, from the creation of Guernica to the pained etchings of his final years. He gives us the full measure of Picasso's triumphs and an unsparing reckoning of their cost−in exile, in loneliness, and in a desolation that drove him, in his last works, into an old man's furious and desperate frenzy at the beauty of what he could no longer create. Views: 623
When Marian Taylor takes a post as governess at Gaze Castle, a remote house on a desolate coast, she finds herself confronted with a number of weird mysteries and involved in a drama she only partly understands. Views: 623
Anti slavery writings originally published in newspapers, collected and republished by the Library of America. Views: 623
When Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their "Children's and Household Tales" in 1812, followed by a second volume in 1815, they had no idea that such stories as "Rapunzel," "Hansel and Gretel," and "Cinderella" would become the most celebrated in the world. Yet few people today are familiar with the majority of tales from the two early volumes, since in the next four decades the Grimms would publish six other editions, each extensively revised in content and style. For the very first time, " The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm" makes available in English all 156 stories from the 1812 and 1815 editions. These narrative gems, newly translated and brought together in one beautiful book, are accompanied by sumptuous new illustrations from award-winning artist Andrea Dezso.
From "The Frog King" to "The Golden Key," wondrous worlds unfold--heroes and heroines are rewarded, weaker animals triumph over the strong, and simple bumpkins prove themselves not so simple after all. Esteemed fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes offers accessible translations that retain the spare description and engaging storytelling style of the originals. Indeed, this is what makes the tales from the 1812 and 1815 editions unique--they reflect diverse voices, rooted in oral traditions, that are absent from the Grimms' later, more embellished collections of tales. Zipes's introduction gives important historical context, and the book includes the Grimms' prefaces and notes.
A delight to read, "The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm" presents these peerless stories to a whole new generation of readers." Views: 623
A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grafter named Joel Cairo, a fat man name Gutman, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett’s coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted three generations of readers. Views: 623
The prolific writings of Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet, continue to inspire a devoted international following and have transformed modern Arabic literature. In this volume of early writings, Gibran’s simple yet lyrical style crosses from prose to poetry and yields insight into his dedication and inner vision of beauty, including the tale of a strange hermit in “The Tempest,” the discovery of love lost to war in “The Mermaids,” and the long voyage of sea and soul in the prose poem “Between Night and Morn.” Views: 623
Robert Graves begins anew the tumultuous life of the Roman who became emperor in spite of himself. Captures the vitality, splendor, and decadence of the Roman world at the point of its decline. Views: 622
