In 1919, the same year Demian was published, seven of these stories appeared as a book entitled Märchen (lit. Fairy Tales). This 1st edition in English has followed the arrangement Hesse made for the final collected edition of his works, where he added an 8th story, "Flute Dream".
The new note so clear in Demian was 1st sounded, Hesse believed, in some of these tales written during 1913-18, the period that brought him into conflict with supporters of the war, with his country & its government, with conventional intellectual life, with every form of orthodoxy both in the world & in himself. Unlike his earlier work, from Peter Carmenzind thru Knulp, the stories in Strange News from Another Star don't allow for an essentially realistic interpretaion. They are concerned with dream worlds, the subconscious, magical thinking & the numinous experience of the soul. Their subject is the distilling of wisdom. The stories are "Augustus", "The Poet", "Flute Dream", "Strange News from Another Star", "The Hard Passage", "A Dream Sequence", "Faldum" &--perhaps the masterpiece of the collection--"Iris". Views: 993
Graves's poems have been re-edited in this volume as part of the "Robert Graves Programme". The text restores hundreds of poems that Graves omitted from the canon or overlooked in his continual refinements and, with its scholarly apparatus, should lead to a re-evaluation of his poetic oeuvre. Views: 990
In her most ambitious work since "In the Time of Butterflies," Julia Alvarez tells the story of a woman whose poetry inspired one Caribbean revolution and of her daughter whose dedication to teaching strengthened another. Camila Henriquez Urena is about to retire from her longtime job teaching Spanish at Vassar College. Only now as she sorts through family papers does she begin to know the woman behind the legend of her mother, the revered Salome Urena, who died when Camila was three.
In stark contrast to Salome, who became the Dominican Republic's national poet at the age of seventeen, Camila has spent most of her life trying not to offend anybody. Her mother dedicated her life to educating young women to give them voice in their turbulent new nation; Camila has spent her life quietly and anonymously teaching the Spanish pluperfect to upper-class American girls with no notion of revolution, no knowledge of Salome Urena.
Now, in 1960, Camila must choose a final destination for herself. Where will she spend the rest of her days? News of the revolution in Cuba mirrors her own internal upheaval. In the process of deciding her future, Camila uncovers the truth of her mother's tragic personal life and, finally, finds a place for her own passion and commitment.
Julia Alvarez has won a large and devoted audience by brilliantly illuminating the history of modern Caribbean America through the personal stories of its people. As a Latina, as a poet and novelist, and as a university professor, Julia Alvarez brings her own experience to this exquisite story. Views: 989
When Rigg and his friends crossed the Wall between the only world they knew and a world they could not imagine, he hoped he was leading them to safety. But the dangers in this new wallfold are more difficult to see. Rigg, Umbo, and Param know that they cannot trust the expendable, Vadesh — a machine shaped like a human, created to deceive — but they are no longer certain that they can even trust one another. But they will have little choice. Because although Rigg can decipher the paths of the past, he can’t yet see the horror that lies ahead: A destructive force with deadly intentions is hurtling toward Garden. If Rigg, Umbo, and Param can’t work together to alter the past, there will be no future. Views: 987
In this innovative re-imagining of the Odyssey’s history, Sicilian princess Nausicaa recounts her story, and how she, not the poet Homer, came to write the Odyssey. Set in the eighth century B.C., it recounts the story of a determined young woman who lives an adventurous life: rescuing her father’s throne from outside threats, freeing herself from an abusive marriage, and saving her two younger brothers from certain death. Nausicaa is a passionate, religious, and dynamic heroine who is more than a match for the heroes in the epic poem she claims to have authored. Views: 987
In the first century a.d., Ovid, author of the groundbreaking epic poem Metamorphoses, came under severe criticism for The Art of Love, which playfully instructed women in the art of seduction and men in the skills essential for mastering the art of romantic conquest. In this remarkable translation, James Michie breathes new life into the notorious Roman’s mock-didactic elegy. In lyrical, irreverent English, he reveals love’s timeless dilemmas and Ovid’s enduring brilliance as both poet and cultural critic.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 987
Only a farmer could delve so deeply into the origins of food, and only a writer of Wendell Berry’s caliber could convey it with such conviction and eloquence. Long before Whole Foods organic produce was available at your local supermarket, Berry was farming with the purity of food in mind. For the last five decades, Berry has embodied mindful eating through his land practices and his writing. In recognition of that influence, Michael Pollan here offers an introduction to this wonderful collection.
Drawn from over thirty years of work, this collection joins bestsellers The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Pollan, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, as essential reading for anyone who cares about what they eat. The essays address such concerns as: How does organic measure up against locally grown? What are the differences between small and large farms, and how does that affect what you put on your dinner table? What can you do to support sustainable agriculture?
A progenitor of the Slow Food movement, Wendell Berry reminds us all to take the time to understand the basics of what we ingest. “Eating is an agriculture act,” he writes. Indeed, we are all players in the food economy. Views: 986
Everyone's favorite Dirty Old Man returns with a new volume of uncollected work. Charles Bukowski (1920-1994), one of the most outrageous figures of twentieth-century American literature, was so prolific that many significant pieces never found their way into his books. Absence of the Hero contains much of his earliest fiction, unseen in decades, as well as a number of previously unpublished stories and essays. The classic Bukowskian obsessions are here: sex, booze, and gambling, along with trenchant analysis of what he calls "Playing and Being the Poet." Among the book's highlights are tales of his infamous public readings ("The Big Dope Reading," "I Just Write Poetry So I Can Go to Bed with Girls"); a review of his own first book; hilarious installments of his newspaper column, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, including meditations on neo-Nazis and driving in Los Angeles; and an uncharacteristic tale of getting lost in the Utah woods ("Bukowski Takes a Trip"). Yet the book also showcases the other Bukowski-an astute if offbeat literary critic. From his own "Manifesto" to his account of poetry in Los Angeles ("A Foreword to These Poets") to idiosyncratic evaluations of Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, LeRoi Jones, and Louis Zukofsky, Absence of the Hero reveals the intellectual hidden beneath the gruff exterior.
Our second volume of his uncollected prose, Absence of the Hero is a major addition to the Bukowski canon, essential for fans, yet suitable for new readers as an introduction to the wide range of his work. Views: 984
Life on the Scilly Isles in 1907 is bleak and full of hardship. Laura's twin brother, Billy, disappears, and then a storm devastates everything. It seems there's little hope, until the Zanzibar is wrecked on the island's rocks and everything changes . . . Views: 983
Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs (first published under the French title L'Homme qui Rit in April 1869) is a sad and sordid tale -- not the sort of tale of the moment Hugo was known for. It starts on the night of January 29, 1690, a ten-year-old boy abandoned -- the stern men who've kept him since infancy have wearied of him. The boy wanders, barefoot and starving, through a snowstorm to reach a gibbet bearing the corpse of a hanged criminal. Beneath the gibbet is a ragged woman, frozen to death. The boy is about to move onward when he hears a sound within the woman's garments: He discovers an infant girl, barely alive, clutching the woman's breast. A single drop of frozen milk, resembling a pearl, is on the woman's lifeless breast... Views: 981
This is the classic fairy tale of what happened to two men who tried to get rich in evil ways and of how the fortune they sought came to their younger brother, whose kind and loving heart prompted him to right action. The King Of the Golden River is widely regarded as a masterpiece of 19th century stories for children. John Ruskin\'s The King of the Golden River exemplifies the literary fairy tale, a form which, like the literary ballad, imitates the anonymous products of popular or folk tradition. Ruskin\'s tale, which he wrote in 1841, two years before he began Modern Painters, tells of Hans and Shwartz, two selfish, evil brothers whose greed costs them their Edenic Treasure Valley and then their lives, and of the third brother, Gluck, whose generosity and self-sacrifice restore the valley\'s fertility. Views: 980
Rewards and Fairies is a historical fantasy book by Rudyard Kipling. The title comes from the poem "Farewell, Rewards and Fairies" by Richard Corbet.The poem is referred to by the children in the first story of the preceding book Puck of Pook's Hill. Rewards and Fairies is set one year later chronologically although published four years afterwards. The book consists of a series of short stories set in historical times with a linking contemporary narrative. Dan and Una are two children, living in the Weald of Sussex in the area of Kipling's own home Bateman's. They have encountered Puck and he magically conjures up real and fictional individuals from Sussex's past to tell the children some aspect of its history and prehistory, though the episodes are not always historically accurate. Another recurring character is Old Hobden who represents the continuity of the inhabitants of the land. His ancestors sometimes appear in the stories and seem very much like him. Views: 978
Elizabeth Throckmorton finds herself visited by the ghost of her distant ancestor, Sir Walter Raleigh. Views: 977
These three novellas display D. H. Lawrence's brilliant and insightful evocation of human relationships - both tender and cruel - and the devastating results of war. In The Fox, two young women living on a small farm during the First World War find their solitary life interrupted. As a fox preys on their poultry, a human predator has the women in his sights. The Captain's Doll explores the complex relationship between a German countess and a married Scottish soldier in occupied Germany, while in The Ladybird a wounded prisoner of war has a disturbing influence on the Englishwoman who visits him in hospital. Views: 976
What terror lurks behind the fence in an ordinary neighborhood? What manner of monster will you see if you peek through a knothole? Something ugly. Something angry. Something with a very large appetite. Take a peek, go ahead. And then run back the way you came!!! You do not want to reach the end of the fence . . .This is a story from "The Macabre Mind Of Lori R. Lopez" -- a horror collection. A creature has emerged from the sewer, mean and deformed, an anomaly. Experience the chills and chuckles of another offbeat tale by an author who loves to weave intricate weird tapestries. Watch your step the next time you leave your home. A creep could be slithering through your neighborhood! Views: 974
