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The fifty essays in Second Words span the period from 1962 to 1980 and reveal Margaret Atwood's views on feminism, Canadian literature, the creative process, nationalism, sexism, as well as critical commentary on such writers as Erica Jong, E. L. Doctorow, Northrop Frye, Roch Carrier, Marie-Claire Blais, Marge Piercy, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, and many more.
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"In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans--and all movie lovers--could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he...
Author
Formats
Description
"An exhilarating volume that will ratchet up the joy for all reading groups "Wendy Lesser's extraordinary alertness, intelligence, and curiosity have made her one of America's most significant cultural critics," writes Stephen Greenblatt. In Why I Read, Lesser draws on a lifetime of pleasure reading and decades of editing one of the most distinguished little magazines in the country, The Threepenny Review, to describe a life lived in and through...
Author
Publisher
Harcourt
Pub. Date
2005
Description
In this collection of essays and addresses delivered over the course of his illustrious career, Umberto Eco seeks "to understand the chemistry of [his] passion" for the word. From musings on Ptolemy and "the force of the false" to reflections on the experimental writing of Borges and Joyce, Eco's luminous intelligence and encyclopedic knowledge are on dazzling display throughout. And when he reveals his own ambitions and superstitions, his authorial...
Author
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date
2018.
Physical Desc
241 pages ; 25 cm
Description
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of God: A Biography, an erudite, hugely informative portrait of the God of Islam, the world's second largest, fastest-growing, and perhaps most tragically misunderstood religion.
Author
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Pub. Date
[2019]
Physical Desc
x, 226 pages : illustrations; 22 cm
Description
In this whimsical book, James Geary explores every facet of wittiness, from its role in innovation to why puns demonstrate the essence of creativity. Geary reasons that wit is both visual and verbal, physical and intellectual: there's the serendipitous wit of scientists, the crafty wit of inventors, the optical wit of artists, and the metaphysical wit of philosophers. In Wit's End, Geary embraces wit in every form by adopting a different style for...
Author
Formats
Description
"In Bookends, Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon offers a compilation of pieces about literature--age-old classics as well as his own--that presents a unique look into his literary origins and influences, the books that shaped his taste and formed his ideas about writing and reading"--
Author
Publisher
Dey Street Books
Pub. Date
2022.
Physical Desc
432 pages 24 cm.
Description
"From culture writer and GQ contributor Scott Meslow, an in-depth celebration of the romantic comedy's modern golden era and its role in our culture, tracking the genre from its heyday in the 80s and the 90s, its slow decline in the 2000s, and its explosive reemergence in the age of streaming, featuring exclusive interviews with the directors, writers, and stars of the iconic films that defined the genre"--
Author
Publisher
Simon & Schuster
Pub. Date
2023.
Physical Desc
xix, 311 pages ; 24 cm
Description
Spanning three decades worth of astute, acerbic, and overall astounding music writing, Kick Out the Jams is the first large-scale anthology of the work of renowned critic Dave Marsh. Ranging from Elvis Presley to Kurt Cobain, from Nina Simone to Ani DiFranco, from the Beatles to Green Day, the book gives an opinionated, eye-opening overview of 20th century popular music--offering a portrait not just of an era but of a writer wrestling with the American...
Author
Publisher
Hachette Books
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
341 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, some color ; 24 cm
Description
In I'll Have What She's Having entertainment journalist Erin Carlson tells the story of the real Nora Ephron and how she reinvented the romcom through her trio of instant classics. With a cast of famous faces including Rob Reiner, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and Billy Crystal, Carlson takes readers on a rollicking, revelatory trip to Ephron's New York City, where reality took a backseat to romance and Ephron--who always knew what she wanted and how she wanted...
Author
Publisher
Viking
Pub. Date
[2017].
Physical Desc
226 pages ; 22 cm
Description
"In this book Wills, as a non-Muslim with an open mind, reads the Qur?an with sympathy but with rigor, trying to discover why other non-Muslims?such as Pope Francis?find it an inspiring book, worthy to guide people down through the centuries. There are many traditions that add to and distort and blunt the actual words of the text. What Wills does resembles the work of art restorers who clean away accumulated layers of dust to find the original meaning....
Author
Formats
Description
"Reel Terror is a love letter to the wildly popular yet still misunderstood genre that churns out blockbusters and cult classics year after year. From The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to Paranormal Activity, Konow explores its all-time highs and lows, why the genre has been overlooked, and how horror films just might help us overcome fear. His on-set stories and insights delve into each movie and its effect on American culture. For novices to all out film...
Author
Description
"Brimming with intelligence and personality, a vastly entertaining account of how dictionaries are made - a must read for word mavens. Have you ever tried to define the word "is?" Do you have strong feelings about the word (and, yes, it is a word) "irregardless?" Did you know that OMG was first used in 1917, in a letter to Winston Churchill? These are the questions that keep lexicographers up at night. While most of us might take dictionaries for...
Author
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
viii, 309 pages : illustrations ; 20 cm
Description
A dazzling collection of essays on how the best poems work, from the master poet and popular essayist. "Poetry," Jane Hirshfield has said, "is language that foments revolutions of being." In ten eloquent and highly original explorations, she unfolds some of the ways this is done--by the inclusion of hiddenness, paradox, and surprise; by a perennial awareness of the place of uncertainty in our lives; by language's own acts of discovery; by the powers...
18) Mariachi
Author
Publisher
Gibbs Smith
Pub. Date
2009.
Physical Desc
176 pages : color illustrations.
Author
Publisher
Simon & Schuster
Pub. Date
2017.
Physical Desc
xxiii, 307 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Description
"An irresistible, nostalgic, and insightful--and totally original--ramble through classic children's literature from Vanity Fair contributing editor (and father) Bruce Handy. In 1690, the dour New England Primer, thought to be the first American children's book, was published in Boston. Offering children gems of advice such as "Strive to learn" and "Be not a dunce," it was no fun at all. So how did we get from there to "Let the wild rumpus start"?...
Author
Formats
Description
"The definitive biography of the world's most popular novel. Putting a century of scholarship on one of the world's most enduring popular novels into accessible, narrative form, this new approach to a classic of world literature is written for a wide general readership. Packed full of information about the book's origins and later career on stage and screen, The Novel of the Century brings to life the extraordinary story of how Victor Hugo managed...
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