Antiracist Baby Picture Book by
A #1 New York Times Bestseller! From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist comes a new full-sized picture book that empowers parents and children to uproot racism in our society and in ourselves, now with added discussion prompts to help readers recognize and reflect on bias in their daily lives. Take your first steps with Antiracist Baby! Or rather, follow Antiracist Baby's nine easy steps for building a more equitable world. With bold art and thoughtful yet playful text, Antiracist Baby introduces the youngest readers and the grown-ups in their lives to the concept and power of antiracism. Providing the language necessary to begin critical conversations at the earliest age, Antiracist Baby is the perfect gift for readers of all ages dedicated to forming a just society. Featured in its own episode in the Netflix original show Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices, Good Morning America, NPR's Morning Edition, CBS This Morning, and more!
The Death of Sitting Bear: New and Selected Poem by
"These are the poems of a master poet. . . . When you read these poems, you will learn to hear deeply the sound a soul makes as it sings about the mystery of dreaming and becoming." -- Joy Harjo, Mvskoke Nation, U.S. Poet Laureate Pulitzer Prize winner and celebrated American master N. Scott Momaday returns with a radiant collection of more than 200 new and selected poems rooted in Native American oral tradition. One of the most important and unique voices in American letters, distinguished poet, novelist, artist, teacher, and storyteller N. Scott Momaday was born into the Kiowa tribe and grew up on Indian reservations in the Southwest. The customs and traditions that influenced his upbringing--most notably the Native American oral tradition--are the centerpiece of his work. This luminous collection demonstrates Momaday's mastery and love of language and the matters closest to his heart. To Momaday, words are sacred; language is power. Spanning nearly fifty years, the poems gathered here illuminate the human condition, Momaday's connection to his Kiowa roots, and his spiritual relationship to the American landscape. The title poem, "The Death of Sitting Bear" is a celebration of heritage and a memorial to the great Kiowa warrior and chief. "I feel his presence close by in my blood and imagination," Momaday writes, "and I sing him an honor song." Here, too, are meditations on mortality, love, and loss, as well as reflections on the incomparable and holy landscape of the Southwest. The Death of Sitting Bear evokes the essence of human experience and speaks to us all.
Entertaining Race: Performing Race by
From the New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop"Entertaining Race is a splendid way to spend quality time reading one of the most remarkable thinkers in America today." --Speaker Nancy Pelosi"To read Entertaining Race is to encounter the life-long vocation of a teacher who preaches, a preacher who teaches and an activist who cannot rest until all are set free."--Senator Reverend Raphael WarnockFor more than thirty years, Michael Eric Dyson has played a prominent role in the nation as a public intellectual, university professor, cultural critic, social activist and ordained Baptist minister. He has presented a rich and resourceful set of ideas about American history and culture. Now for the first time he brings together the various components of his multihued identity and eclectic pursuits.Entertaining Race is a testament to Dyson's consistent celebration of the outsized impact of African American culture and politics on this country. Black people were forced to entertain white people in slavery, have been forced to entertain the idea of race from the start, and must find entertaining ways to make race an object of national conversation. Dyson's career embodies these and other ways of performing Blackness, and in these pages, ranging from 1991 to the present, he entertains race with his pen, voice and body, and occasionally, alongside luminaries like Cornel West, David Blight, Ibram X. Kendi, Master P, MC Lyte, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alicia Garza, John McWhorter, and Jordan Peterson.Most of this work will be new to readers, a fresh light for many of his long-time fans and an inspiring introduction for newcomers. Entertaining Race offers a compelling vision from the mind and heart of one of America's most important and enduring voices.
Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America by
Just as The Color of Law provided a vital understanding of redlining and racial segregation, Marcia Chatelain's Franchise investigates the complex interrelationship between black communities and America's largest, most popular fast food chain. Taking us from the first McDonald's drive-in in San Bernardino to the franchise on Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, Missouri, in the summer of 2014, Chatelain shows how fast food is a source of both power?economic and political?and despair for African Americans. As she contends, fast food is, more than ever before, a key battlefield in the fight for racial justice.
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery across America by
Instant #1 New York Times bestseller PEN America 2022 John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Finalist Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Awards A New York Times 10 Best Books of 2021 A Time 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2021 Named a Best Book of 2021 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Economist, Smithsonian, Esquire, Entropy, The Christian Science Monitor, WBEZ's Nerdette Podcast, TeenVogue, GoodReads, SheReads, BookPage, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Fathom Magazine, the New York Public Library, and the Chicago Public Library One of GQ's 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century Longlisted for the National Book Award Los Angeles Times, Best Nonfiction Gift One of President Obama's Favorite Books of 2021 Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks--those that are honest about the past and those that are not--that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves. It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving more than four hundred people. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola, a former plantation-turned-maximum-security prison in Louisiana that is filled with Black men who work across the 18,000-acre land for virtually no pay. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers. A deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country's most essential stories are hidden in plain view--whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods like downtown Manhattan, where the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women, and children has been deeply imprinted. Informed by scholarship and brought to life by the story of people living today, Smith's debut work of nonfiction is a landmark of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in making sense of our country and how it has come to be.
Intersectional Chicana Feminisms: Sitios y Lenguas by
Chicana feminisms are living theory deriving value and purpose by affecting social change. Advocating for and demonstrating the importance of an intersectional, multidisciplinary, activist understanding of Chicanas, Intersectional Chicana Feminisms provides a much-needed overview of the key theories, thinkers, and activists that have contributed to Chicana feminist thought. Aída Hurtado, a leading Chicana feminist and scholar, traces the origins of Chicanas' efforts to bring attention to the effects of gender in Chicana and Chicano studies. Highlighting the innovative and pathbreaking methodologies developed within the field of Chicana feminisms--such as testimonio, conocimiento, and autohistoria--this book offers an accessible introduction to Chicana theory, methodology, art, and activism. Hurtado also looks at the newest developments in the field and the future of Chicana feminisms. The book includes short biographies of key Chicana feminists, additional suggested readings, and exercises with each chapter to extend opportunities for engagement in classroom and workshop settings.
A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by
In an urgent and visceral work that asks essential questions about the treatment of Native people in North America while drawing on intimate details of her own life and experience with intergenerational trauma, Alicia Elliott offers indispensable insight into the ongoing legacy of colonialism. She engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrification, writing and representation, and in the process makes connections both large and small between the past and present, the personal and political.
My Heart Is a Chainsaw by
Named a Best Book of 2021 by NPR ​In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for in this latest novel from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones. "Some girls just don't know how to die..." Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in My Heart Is a Chainsaw, written by the author of The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones, called "a literary master" by National Book Award winner Tananarive Due and "one of our most talented living writers" by Tommy Orange. Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw "a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre." On the surface is a story of murder in small-town America. But beneath is its beating heart: a biting critique of American colonialism, Indigenous displacement, and gentrification, and a heartbreaking portrait of a broken young girl who uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life. Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies...especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold. Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges...a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.
Poet Warrior: A Memoir by
National bestseller An ALA Notable Book Three-term poet laureate Joy Harjo offers a vivid, lyrical, and inspiring call for love and justice in this contemplation of her trailblazing life. Joy Harjo, the first Native American to serve as U.S. poet laureate, invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic, and wise follow-up to Crazy Brave, Poet Warrior reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of compassion and healing, poetry with the power to unearth the truth and demand justice. Harjo listens to stories of ancestors and family, the poetry and music that she first encountered as a child, and the messengers of a changing earth--owls heralding grief, resilient desert plants, and a smooth green snake curled up in surprise. She celebrates the influences that shaped her poetry, among them Audre Lorde, N. Scott Momaday, Walt Whitman, Muscogee stomp dance call-and-response, Navajo horse songs, rain, and sunrise. In absorbing, incantatory prose, Harjo grieves at the loss of her mother, reckons with the theft of her ancestral homeland, and sheds light on the rituals that nourish her as an artist, mother, wife, and community member. Moving fluidly between prose, song, and poetry, Harjo recounts a luminous journey of becoming, a spiritual map that will help us all find home. Poet Warrior sings with the jazz, blues, tenderness, and bravery that we know as distinctly Joy Harjo.
Say It Loud!: On Race, Law, History, and Culture by
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR * A collection of provocative essays exploring the key social justice issues of our time--from George Floyd to antiracism to inequality and the Supreme Court. Kennedy is "among the most incisive American commentators on race" (The New York Times). Informed by sharpness of observation and often courting controversy, deep fellow feeling, decency, and wit, Say It Loud! includes: The George Floyd Moment: Promise and Peril * Isabel Wilkerson, the Election of 2020, and Racial Caste * The Princeton Ultimatum: Antiracism Gone Awry * The Constitutional Roots of "Birtherism" * Inequality and the Supreme Court * "Nigger": The Strange Career Continues * Frederick Douglass: Everyone's Hero * Remembering Thurgood Marshall * Why Clarence Thomas Ought to Be Ostracized * The Politics of Black Respectability * Policing Racial Solidarity In each essay, Kennedy is mindful of complexity, ambivalence, and paradox, and he is always stirring and enlightening. Say It Loud! is a wide-ranging summa of Randall Kennedy's thought on the realities and imaginaries of race in America.
The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * One of today's most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone--not just for people of color. WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD * ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms. magazine, BookRiot, Library Journal * LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL * "This is the book I've been waiting for."--Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist Heather McGhee's specialty is the American economy--and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out? McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm--the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country--from parks and pools to functioning schools--have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world's advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare. But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply can't do on our own. The Sum of Us is not only a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here but also a heartfelt message, delivered with startling empathy, from a black woman to a multiracial America. It leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game.
When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky by
Louise Erdrich meets Karen Russell in this deliciously strange and daringly original novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble: set in 1926 Nashville, it follows a death-defying young Cherokee horse-diver who, with her companions from the Glendale Park Zoo, must get to the bottom of a mystery that spans centuries. Two Feathers, a young Cherokee horse-diver on loan to Glendale Park Zoo from a Wild West show, is determined to find her own way in the world. Two's closest friend at Glendale is Hank Crawford, who loves horses almost as much as she does. He is part of a high-achieving, land-owning Black family. Neither Two nor Hank fit easily into the highly segregated society of 1920s Nashville. When disaster strikes during one of Two's shows, strange things start to happen at the park. Vestiges of the ancient past begin to surface, apparitions appear, and then the hippo falls mysteriously ill. At the same time, Two dodges her unsettling, lurking admirer and bonds with Clive, Glendale's zookeeper and a World War I veteran, who is haunted--literally--by horrific memories of war. To get to the bottom of it, an eclectic cast of park performers, employees, and even the wealthy stakeholders must come together, making When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky an unforgettable and irresistible tale of exotic animals, lingering spirits, and unexpected friendship.
Dance Theory: Source Readings for Two Millennia of Western Dance by
The history of dance theory has never been told. Writers in every age have theorized prescriptively, according to their own needs and ideals, and theorists themselves having continually asserted the lack of any pre-existing dance theory. Dance Theory: Source Readings from Two Millennia ofWestern Dance revives and reintegrates dance theory as a field of historical dance studies, presenting a coherent reading of the interaction of theory and practice during two millennia of dance history. In fifty-five selected readings with explanatory text, this book follows the variousconstructions of dance theories as they have morphed and evolved in time, from ancient Greece to the twenty-first century.Dance Theory is a collection of source readings that, commensurate with current teaching practice, foregrounds dance and performance theory in its presentation of western dance forms. Divided into nine chapters organized chronologically by historical era and predominant intellectual and artisticcurrents, the book presents a history of an idea from one generation to another. Each chapter contains introductions that not only provide context and significance for the individual source readings, but also create narrative threads that link different chapters and time periods. Based entirely onprimary sources, the book makes no claim to cite every source, but rather, in connecting the dots between significant high points, it attempts to trace a coherent and fair narrative of the evolution of dance theory as a concept in Western culture.
Designing a New Tradition: Lois Mailou Jones and the Aesthetics of Blackness by
In Designing a New Tradition, Rebecca VanDiveRebecca VanDiver is Assistant Professor of African American Art at Vanderbilt University.r presents a fresh perspective on the art and career of Loïs Mailou Jones. Considering the importance of Africa for Jones's work and examining the broader roles played by class, gender, and politics in constructions of African American art histories as a whole, VanDiver makes a convincing case for Jones's lasting place in American art history. VanDiver repositions Jones's work within the canon of American art, situating the artist's production within the larger cultural and aesthetic debates of the twentieth century, including modernism, abstraction, the Harlem Renaissance, feminism, Négritude, and Pan-Africanism. In doing so, VanDiver reveals one of Jones's most significant contributions to American art: the development of a composite black aesthetic that negotiates African, American, and European artistic traditions to reflect the increasingly fragmented nature of twentieth-century black identity and diasporic experiences. Tracing Jones's aesthetic transformations along a biographical arc, VanDiver offers a new framework for thinking about the connection between America and Africa and the role of the African diaspora in the creation of African American artistic identity. Accessibly written and filled with fascinating anecdotes about Jones's life and career, her many acquaintances, and the challenges she faced as a black woman artist working in the twentieth century, this book makes a singular contribution to a new and expanded art-historical canon.
Frida Kahlo: The Complete Paintings by
Among the few women artists who have transcended art history, none had a meteoric rise quite like Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). Her unmistakable face, depicted in over fifty extraordinary self-portraits, has been admired by generations; along with hundreds of photographs taken by notable artists such as Edward Weston, Manuel and Lola Álvarez Bravo, Nickolas Muray, and Martin Munkácsi, they made Frida Kahlo an iconic image of 20th century art. After an accident in her early youth, Frida became a painter of her own free will. Her marriage to Diego Rivera in 1929 placed her at the forefront of an artistic scene not only in the cultural Renaissance of Mexico, but also in the United States. Her work garnered praise from the poet André Breton, who added the Mexican painter to the ranks of international surrealism and exhibited her work in Paris in 1939 to the admiration of Picasso, Kandinsky, and Duchamp. We access the intimacy of Frida's affections and passions through a selection of drawings, pages from her personal diary, letters, and an extensive illustrated biography featuring photos of Frida, Diego, and the Casa Azul, Frida's home and the center of her universe. This large-format XXL book allows readers to admire Frida Kahlo's paintings like never before, including unprecedented detail shots and famous photographs. It presents pieces in private collections and reproduces works that were previously lost or have not been exhibited for more than 80 years, forming the most extensive study of Kahlo's work and life to date.
ITake-Over: The Recording Industry in the Streaming Era by
The second edition of iTake-Over: The Recording Industry in the Streaming Era sheds light on the way large corporations appropriate new technology to maintain their market dominance in a capitalist system. To date, scholars have erroneously argued that digital music has diminished the power of major record labels. In iTake-Over, sociologist David Arditi suggests otherwise, adopting a broader perspective on the entire issue by examining how the recording industry strengthened copyright laws for their private ends at the expense of the broader public good. Arditi also challenges the dominant discourse on digital music distribution, which assumes that the recording industry has a legitimate claim to profitability at the expense of a shared culture. Arditi specifically surveys the actual material effects that digital distribution has had on the industry. Most notable among these is how major record labels find themselves in a stronger financial position today in the music industry than they were before the launch of Napster, largely because of reduced production and distribution costs and the steady gain in digital music sales. Moreover, instead of merely trying to counteract the phenomenon of digital distribution, the RIAA and the major record labels embraced and then altered the distribution system.
Kintsugi: The Poetic Mend by
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer mixed with a precious metal, usually gold, silver or platinum. The technique celebrates the history of the object and, rather than disguising a repair, highlights it and makes it beautiful. Kintsugi has come to the West, where it found fertile ground through its kinship with the current trend of 'make do and mend', as well as for its lyrical metaphoric loading, which has been used in areas such as psychology and therapy, well-being, music, and emotional healing and spirituality. It is also being presented as a model for sustainability. This book explains what traditionalkintsugiis and how it is done, giving historical examples and using interviews of traditionalkintsugimasters in Japan. It reflects on the possible reasons for its development, looking especially at a cultural attitude of "creativity through destruction." Different kinds of repairs will be discussed, including the earlier "staple" repair often seen in Chinese ceramic wares and the development ofyobitsugi,in which shards from different vessels are pieced together in a patchwork, and otherkintsugitechniques. The underlying concept ofkintsugi, which encompasses thewabiaesthetic of accepting the imperfect, has struck a chord in other fields such as fine art, textiles, graphics, and product design. The metaphoric richness of a broken pot made stronger and more beautiful is both universal and deeply personal. The book will discuss how this is being used in music and literature, with the inclusion of short works of fiction and/or poetry separating the chapters. There have been recent ceramic exhibitions with akintsugitheme, including "Golden Seams" at the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery in Washington DC. Other exhibitions outside of ceramics that have had akintsugitheme include a photography and installation piece by Koo Stark at the Leica Gallery, London. An example of its metaphoric application can be seen in the Radio 4 programme, 'Mending Cracks of Gold' (part of the seriesSomething Understood,which presents 'ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life, taking a spiritual theme and exploring it through music, prose and poetry'), for which Bonnie was a contributor. There have been two TED Talks aboutkintsugi.
Legacies of the Drunken Master: Legacies of the Body in Hong Kong Kung Fu Comedy Films by
In 1978 the films Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master, both starring a young Jackie Chan, caused a stir in the Hong Kong cinema industry and changed the landscape of martial arts cinema. Mixing virtuoso displays of acrobatic kung fu with knockabout humor to huge box office success, they broke the mold of the tragic and heroic martial arts film and sparked not only a wave of imitations, but also a much longer trend for kung fu comedies that continues to the present day. Legacies of the Drunken Master--the first book-length analysis of kung fu comedy--interrogates the politics of the films and their representations of the performing body. It draws on an interdisciplinary engagement with popular culture and an interrogation of the critical literature on Hong Kong and martial arts cinema to offer original readings of key films. These readings pursue the genre in terms of its carnival aesthetic, the utopias of the body it envisions, its highly stylized depictions of violence, its images of masculinity, and the registers of its "hysterical" laughter. The book's analyses are carried out amidst kung fu comedy's shifting historical contexts, including the aftermath of the 1960s radical youth movements, the rapidly globalizing colonial enclave of Hong Kong and the emerging consciousness of its 1997 handover to China, and the transnationalization of cinema audiences. It argues that through kung fu comedy's images of the body, the genre articulated in complex and often contradictory ways political realities relevant to late twentieth-century Hong Kong and the wider conditions of globalized capitalism. The kung fu comedy entwines us in a popular cultural history that stretches into the folk past and forward into utopian and dystopian possibilities. Theoretically rich and critical, Legacies of the Drunken Master aims to be at the forefront of scholarship on martial arts cinema. It also addresses readers with a broader interest in Hong Kong culture and politics during the 1970s and 1980s, postcolonialism in East Asia, and action and comedy films in a global context--as well as those fascinated with the performing body in the martial arts.
The Photograph As Contemporary Art by
A new edition of thedefinitive title in thefield of contemporaryart photography by oneof the world's leadingexperts on the subject,Charlotte Cotton. In the twenty-first century, photography has come of age as a contemporary art form. Almost two centuries after photographic technology was first invented, the art world has fully embraced it as a legitimate medium, equal in status to painting and sculpture. The Photograph as Contemporary Art introduces the extraordinary range of contemporary art photography, from portraits of intimate life to highly staged directorial spectacles. Arranged thematically, the book reproduces work from a vast span of photographers, including Andreas Gursky, Barbara Kasten, Catherine Opie, Cindy Sherman, Deana Lawson, Diana Markosian, Elle Pérez, Gregory Halpern, Lieko Shiga, Nan Goldin, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Pixy Liao, Susan Meiselas, and Zanele Muholi. This fully revised and updated new edition revitalizes previous discussion of works from the 2000s through dialogue with more recent practice. Alongside previously featured work, Charlotte Cotton celebrates a new generation of artists who are shaping photography as a culturally significant medium for our current sociopolitical climate. A superb resource, The Photograph as Contemporary Art is a uniquely broad and diverse reflection of the field.
The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution--from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality--and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation. For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike--either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself. Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what's really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume. The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action. Includes Black-and-White Illustrations
Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-Up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World by
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020 New York Times bestselling author Lesley M.M. Blume reveals how one courageous American reporter uncovered one of the deadliest cover-ups of the 20th century--the true effects of the atom bomb--potentially saving millions of lives. Just days after the United States decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally. But even before the surrender, the US government and military had begun a secret propaganda and information suppression campaign to hide the devastating nature of these experimental weapons. The cover-up intensified as Occupation forces closed the atomic cities to Allied reporters, preventing leaks about the horrific long-term effects of radiation which would kill thousands during the months after the blast. For nearly a year the cover-up worked--until New Yorker journalist John Hersey got into Hiroshima and managed to report the truth to the world. As Hersey and his editors prepared his article for publication, they kept the story secret--even from most of their New Yorker colleagues. When the magazine published "Hiroshima" in August 1946, it became an instant global sensation, and inspired pervasive horror about the hellish new threat that America had unleashed. Since 1945, no nuclear weapons have ever been deployed in war partly because Hersey alerted the world to their true, devastating impact. This knowledge has remained among the greatest deterrents to using them since the end of World War II. Released on the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Fallout is an engrossing detective story, as well as an important piece of hidden history that shows how one heroic scoop saved--and can still save--the world.
The Presidency of George W. Bush by
The Presidency of George W. Bush is the first balanced academic study to analyze the entirety of his presidency--domestic, social, economic, and national security policies--as well as the administration's response to 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror. In so doing, John Robert Greene argues persuasively that the judgment of most scholars--that the Bush administration was a complete failure--has been made in haste and without the benefit of primary sources. This book is the first scholarly work to make wide use of the documents at the George W. Bush Presidential Library, many of which have only recently been made available to researchers through the Freedom of Information Act. John Robert Greene offers a balanced assessment and nuanced conclusions supported by documentary evidence. Yet in doing so he does not absolve the Bush administration of its shortcomings. The Presidency of George W. Bush shows that the administration could be vindictive, as demonstrated by the Wilson-Plame affair and the firing of the US attorneys. It all too often moved too slowly, as shown by the National Security Council's lethargic handling of terrorism pre-9/11, the failed attempt to revise Social Security, and the sluggish reaction to Hurricane Katrina. It was an administration that accepted, and acted on, the highly suspect theory of the unitary presidency as advocated by Dick Cheney and accepted by the president. On the other side of the balance sheet, however, the evidence also makes it eminently clear that the Bush administration was responsible for many positive achievements: No Child Left Behind set the nation on the road toward affecting serious educational reform. In healthcare reform, the Bush administration both strengthened the Medicare system and extended its benefits for millions of Americans. And Bush did more to combat the worldwide scourge of AIDS, particularly in Africa, than any other president. In sum, the actions of this presidency continue to affect the presidencies of each of his successors as well as the trajectory of world history to the present day.
AOC: The Fearless Rise and Powerful Resonance of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by
NAMED ONE OF AUGUST'S BEST NEW BOOKS BY CNN | ON Cosmo's LIST OF 12 BOOKS YOU'LL BE DESPERATE TO READ THIS SUMMER | ONE OF Autostraddle's 60 QUEER & FEMINIST BOOKS COMING YOUR WAY THIS SUMMER | A 2020 TITLE TO WATCH BY Library Journal | LISTED ON Marie Claire's POLITICAL BOOKS TO READ With a preface by Keegan-Michael Key In the vein of Notorious RBG, seventeen writers explore the multiple meanings of a young Latina politician who has already made history. From the moment Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat a ten-term incumbent in the primary election for New York's 14th, her journey to the national, if not world, stage, was fast-tracked. Six months later, as the youngest Congresswoman ever elected, AOC became one of a handful of Latina politicians in Washington, D.C. Just thirty, she represents her generation, the millennials, in many groundbreaking ways: proudly working class, Democratic Socialist, of Puerto Rican descent, master of social media, not to mention of the Bronx, feminist--and a great dancer. AOC investigates her symbolic and personal significance for so many, from her willingness to use her imperfect bi-lingualism, to why men are so threatened by her power, to the long history of Puerto Rican activism that she joins. Contributors span a wide range of voices and ages, from media to the arts and politics: Keegan-Michael Key -- Preface Lynda Lopez -- Introduction: "The Meaning of AOC" Jennine Capó Crucet -- "An Open Letter to Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez" Andrea González-Ramírez -- "Women Like Me Aren't Supposed to Run for Office" Patricia Reynoso -- "'The First Latina to . . .'" Pedro Regalado -- "'Pa'lante!': The Long History of Puerto Rican Activism in New York City" Rebecca Traister -- "The Imagined Threat of a Woman Who Governs Like a Man" Natalia Sylvester -- "In No Uncertain Terms" Erin Aubry Kaplan -- "The Center Will Not Hold. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Counting on It" Tracey Ross -- "A Just Society" Carmen Rita Wong -- "Latinas Are So Money" Mariana Atencio -- "AOC the Influencer" Wendy Carrillo -- "What AOC and I Learned at Standing Rock" Nathan J. Robinson -- "The Democratic Socialism of AOC" Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez -- "On Being an Indignant Brown Girl" Elizabeth Yeampierre -- "Making the Green New Deal the Real Deal" María Cristina "MC" González Noguera -- "The Hustle"
Blood and Oil: Mohammed Bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power by
From award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters comes a revelatory look at the inner workings of the world's most powerful royal family, and how the struggle for succession produced Saudi Arabia's charismatic but ruthless Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS.​ 35-year-old Mohammed bin Salman's sudden rise stunned the world. Political and business leaders such as former UK prime minister Tony Blair and WME chairman Ari Emanuel flew out to meet with the crown prince and came away convinced that his desire to reform the kingdom was sincere. He spoke passionately about bringing women into the workforce and toning down Saudi Arabia's restrictive Islamic law. He lifted the ban on women driving and explored investments in Silicon Valley. But MBS began to betray an erratic interior beneath the polish laid on by scores of consultants and public relations experts like McKinsey & Company. The allegations of his extreme brutality and excess began to slip out, including that he ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While stamping out dissent by holding 300 people, including prominent members of the Saudi royal family, in the Ritz-Carlton hotel and elsewhere for months, he continued to exhibit his extreme wealth, including buying a $70 million chateau in Europe and one of the world's most expensive yachts. It seemed that he did not understand nor care about how the outside world would react to his displays of autocratic muscle--what mattered was the flex. Blood and Oil is a gripping work of investigative journalism about one of the world's most decisive and dangerous new leaders. Hope and Scheck show how MBS' precipitous rise coincided with the fraying of the simple bargain that had been at the head of US-Saudi relations for more than 80 years: oil, for military protection. Caught in his net are well-known US bankers, Hollywood figures, and politicians, all eager to help the charming and crafty crown prince. The Middle East is already a volatile region. Add to the mix an ambitious prince with extraordinary powers, hunger for lucre, a tight relationship with the White House through President Trump's son in law Jared Kushner, and an apparent willingness to break anything--and anyone--that gets in the way of his vision, and the stakes of his rise are bracing. If his bid fails, Saudi Arabia has the potential to become an unstable failed state and a magnet for Islamic extremists. And if his bid to transform his country succeeds, even in part, it will have reverberations around the world. Longlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
The Devil's Playbook: Big Tobacco, Juul, and the Addiction of a New Generation by
Big Tobacco meets Silicon Valley in this "deeply reported and illuminating" (The New York Times Book Review)corporate expose of what happened when two of the most notorious industries collided-and the vaping epidemic was born. "The best business book I've read since Bad Blood."-Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author of Ali- A Life Howard Willard lusted after Juul. As the CEO of tobacco giant Philip Morris's parent company and a veteran of the industry's long fight to avoid being regulated out of existence, he grew obsessed with a prize he believed could save his company-the e-cigarette, a product with all the addictive upside of the original without the same apparent health risks and bad press. Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley, Adam Bowen and James Monsees began working on a device that was meant to save lives and destroy Big Tobacco, but they ended up baking the industry's DNA into their invention's science and marketing. Ultimately, Juul's e-cigarette was so effective and so market-dominating that it put the company on a collision course with Philip Morris and sparked one of the most explosive public health crises in recent memory. In a deeply reported account, award-winning journalist Lauren Etter tells a riveting story of greed and deception in one of the biggest botched deals in business history.Etter shows how Philip Morris's struggle to innovate left Willard desperate to acquire Juul, even as his own team sounded alarms about the startup's reliance on underage customers. And she shows how Juul's executives negotiated a lavish deal that let them pocket the lion's share of Philip Morris's $12.8 billion investment while government regulators and furious parents mounted a campaign to hold the company's feet to the fire. TheDevil'sPlaybook is the inside story of how Juul's embodiment of Silicon Valley's "move fast and break things" ethos wrought havoc on American health, and how a beleaguered tobacco company was seduced by the promise of a new generation of addicted customers. With both companies' eyes on the financial prize, neither anticipated the sudden outbreak of vaping-linked deaths that would terrorize a nation, crater Juul's value, end Willard's career, and show the costs in human life of the rush to riches-while Juul's founders, board members, and employees walked away with a windfall.
The End of Bias: a Beginning: The Science and Practice of Overcoming Unconscious Bias by
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, AARP, GREATER GOOD, AND INC. The End of Bias is a transformative, groundbreaking exploration into how we can eradicate unintentional bias and discrimination, the great challenge of our age. Unconscious bias: persistent, unintentional prejudiced behavior that clashes with our consciously held beliefs. We know that it exists, to corrosive and even lethal effect. We see it in medicine, the workplace, education, policing, and beyond. But when it comes to uprooting our prejudices, we still have far to go. With nuance, compassion, and ten years' immersion in the topic, Jessica Nordell weaves gripping stories with scientific research to reveal how minds, hearts, and behaviors change. She scrutinizes diversity training, deployed across the land as a corrective but with inconsistent results. She explores what works and why: the diagnostic checklist used by doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital that eliminated disparate treatment of men and women; the preschool in Sweden where teachers found ingenious ways to uproot gender stereotyping; the police unit in Oregon where the practice of mindfulness and specialized training has coincided with a startling drop in the use of force. Captivating, direct, and transformative, The End of Bias: A Beginning brings good news. Biased behavior can change; the approaches outlined here show how we can begin to remake ourselves and our world. Includes illustrated charts
The Scandal of Standardized Tests: Why We Need To Drop the SAT & ACT by
This update to SAT Wars provides new evidence in the case against standardized college entry tests, including the experiences of test-optional colleges. The Scandal of Standardized Tests sheds significant light on key problems such as: Are the tests stronger proxies for race and family income today than they were 20 years ago? Does going test-optional promote racial and economic diversity? Are there any differences in academic records between students admitted without test scores and those with them? How does testing figure into race-sensitive admissions legal controversies? Why is the College Board's "environmental dashboard" inadequate as a way to create a fair playing field? How are the odds of attending and graduating from college stacked against low-income youths and racial minorities? What does the FBI Varsity Blues sting tell us about college admissions in America? Book Features: Provides 25 years of data on California showing how the correlation of test scores with race has grown over time while their predictive powers have declined. Shows how the disparate results of SAT/ACT scores by race provide grounds for a constitutional challenge to the use of those tests. Provides an overview of our current national situation regarding college applications, attendance, and graduation rates according to family income and college major. Offers a devastating critique of the College Board's "adversity index." Includes a national balance sheet on the experiences of test-optional colleges.
The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism by
An incisive history of self-serving white feminists and the inspiring women who've continually defied them Women including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, and Sheryl Sandberg are commonly celebrated as leaders of feminism. Yet they have fought for the few, not the many. As award-winning scholar Kyla Schuller argues, their white feminist politics dispossess the most marginalized to liberate themselves. In The Trouble with White Women, Schuller brings to life the two-hundred-year counter history of Black, Indigenous, Latina, poor, queer, and trans women pushing back against white feminists and uniting to dismantle systemic injustice. These feminist heroes such as Frances Harper, Harriet Jacobs, and Pauli Murray have created an anti-racist feminism for all. But we don't speak their names and we don't know their legacies. Unaware of these intersectional leaders, feminists have been led down the same dead-end alleys generation after generation, often working within the structures of racism, capitalism, homophobia, and transphobia rather than against them. Building a more just feminist politics for today requires a reawakening, a return to the movement's genuine vanguards and visionaries. Their compelling stories, campaigns, and conflicts reveal the true potential of feminist liberation. An Entropy Magazine Best Nonfiction Book of 2020-2021,The Trouble with White Women gives feminists today the tools to fight for the flourishing of all.
Berries by
What is it about the small fruits of field and wood that encourage rapture? These gifts of the earth--flagrant in hedgerows, carpeting the forest floor or coloring tablelands--are so ubiquitous as to be commonplace and yet so extraordinary that we have woven them into our folklore, our fables, and our art. Strawberries were painted in the frescoes of Pompeii, brambles twined into the borders of medieval miniatures, and mulberries have been embroidered on silks and linens. Today, the huge demand for these nutrient-rich fruits is pushing berry cultivation into new territories, from South America to Scandinavia, and changing the nature of our relationship with these much-loved fruits. In this delightful, surprising, and occasionally juicy botanical exploration, Victoria Dickenson traces the humble berry's journey across cultures and through centuries with humor and passion.
The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020 NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY * THE WASHINGTON POST * THE ECONOMIST * NEW SCIENTIST * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY * THE GUARDIAN "A thrilling tour of potential cosmic doomsdays....Mack's infectious enthusiasm for communicating the finer points of cosmological doom elevates The End of Everything over any other book on the topic." --The Wall Street Journal "I found it helpful--not reassuring, certainly, but mind-expanding--to be reminded of our place in a vast cosmos." --James Gleick, The New York Times Book Review From one of the most dynamic rising stars in astrophysics, an accessible and eye-opening look at five ways the universe could end, and the mind-blowing lessons each scenario reveals about the most important concepts in cosmology. We know the universe had a beginning. With the Big Bang, it expanded from a state of unimaginable density to an all-encompassing cosmic fireball to a simmering fluid of matter and energy, laying down the seeds for everything from black holes to one rocky planet orbiting a star near the edge of a spiral galaxy that happened to develop life as we know it. But what happens to the universe at the end of the story? And what does it mean for us now? Dr. Katie Mack has been contemplating these questions since she was a young student, when her astronomy professor informed her the universe could end at any moment, in an instant. This revelation set her on the path toward theoretical astrophysics. Now, with lively wit and humor, she takes us on a mind-bending tour through five of the cosmos's possible finales: the Big Crunch, Heat Death, the Big Rip, Vacuum Decay (the one that could happen at any moment!), and the Bounce. Guiding us through cutting-edge science and major concepts in quantum mechanics, cosmology, string theory, and much more, The End of Everything is a wildly fun, surprisingly upbeat ride to the farthest reaches of all that we know.
Beauty and the Beast: The Original Story by
Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, the little-known author of Beauty and the Beast, was a successful novelist and fairytale writer in mid eighteenth-century France. While her novels are rarely read today, her compelling fairytale has become universally recognized. This edition is the first integral English translation of Villeneuve's original tale. The introduction seeks to illuminate the publication of Beauty and the Beast in its historical and literary context, and brings to life the dynamic female characters that first populated this enchanting tale: the courageous Beauty, the Fairy Queen, the Amazon Queen, the Lady Fairy, and the powerful, but mischievous elderly fairy. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series volume 74
The Best American Short Stories 2021 by
A collection of the year's best stories selected by celebrated two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward In her introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2021, guest editor JesmynWard says that the best fiction offers the reader a "sense of repair."The stories in this year's collection accomplish just that, immersing the reader in powerfully imagined worlds and allowing them to bring some of that power into their own lives. From a stirring portrait of Rodney King's final days to a surreal video game set in the Middle East,with real consequences, to an indigenous boy's gripping escape from his captors, this collection renders profoundly empathetic depictions of the variety of human experience. These stories are poignant reminders of the possibilities of fiction: as you sink into world after world, become character after character, as Ward writes,you"forget yourself, and then, upon surfacing, know yourself and others anew. The Best American Short Stories 2021 includes GABRIEL BUMP * BRANDON HOBSON * DAVID MEANS* JANE PEK * TRACEY ROSE PEYTON * GEORGE SAUNDERS * BRYAN WASHINGTON * KEVIN WILSON * C PAM ZHANG and others
The Best American Essays 2021 by
A collection of the year's best essays, selected by award-winning journalist andNew Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz "The world is abundant even in bad times," guest editor Kathryn Schulz writes in her introduction, "it is lush with interestingness, and always, somewhere, offering up consolation or beauty or humor or happiness, or at least the hope of future happiness." The essays Schulz selected are a powerful time capsule of 2020, showcasing that even if our lives as we knew them stopped, the beauty to be found in them flourished. From an intimate account of nursing a loved one inthe early days of the pandemic, to a masterful portrait of grieving the loss of a husband as the country grieved the loss of George Floyd, this collection brilliantly shapes the grief, hardship, and hope of a singular year. The Best American Essays 2021 includes ELIZABETH ALEXANDER * HILTON ALS * GABRIELLE HAMILTON * RUCHIR JOSHI * PATRICIA LOCKWOOD* CLAIRE MESSUD * WESLEY MORRIS * BETH NGUYEN * JESMYN WARD and others
The Best Short Stories 2021 by
Twenty prizewinning stories selected from the thousands published in magazines over the previous year-continuing the O. Henry Prize's century-long tradition of literary excellence. Now entering its second century, the prestigious annual story anthology has a new title, a new look, and a new guest editor.Chimamanda Ngozi Adichiehas brought her own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and young emerging voices. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Adichie, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction. Featured in this collection- Daphne Palasi Andreades . David Means . Sindya Bhanoo . Crystal Wilkinson . Alice Jolly . David Rabe . Karina Sainz Borgo (translator, Elizabeth Bryer) . Jamel Brinkley . Tessa Hadley . Adachioma Ezeano . Anthony Doerr . Tiphanie Yanique . Joan Silber . Jowhor Ile . Emma Cline . Asali Solomon . Ben Hinshaw . Caroline Albertine Minor (translator, Caroline Waight) . Jianan Qian . Sally Rooney
The Death of Sitting Bear: New and Selected Poem by
"These are the poems of a master poet. . . . When you read these poems, you will learn to hear deeply the sound a soul makes as it sings about the mystery of dreaming and becoming." -- Joy Harjo, Mvskoke Nation, U.S. Poet Laureate Pulitzer Prize winner and celebrated American master N. Scott Momaday returns with a radiant collection of more than 200 new and selected poems rooted in Native American oral tradition. One of the most important and unique voices in American letters, distinguished poet, novelist, artist, teacher, and storyteller N. Scott Momaday was born into the Kiowa tribe and grew up on Indian reservations in the Southwest. The customs and traditions that influenced his upbringing--most notably the Native American oral tradition--are the centerpiece of his work. This luminous collection demonstrates Momaday's mastery and love of language and the matters closest to his heart. To Momaday, words are sacred; language is power. Spanning nearly fifty years, the poems gathered here illuminate the human condition, Momaday's connection to his Kiowa roots, and his spiritual relationship to the American landscape. The title poem, "The Death of Sitting Bear" is a celebration of heritage and a memorial to the great Kiowa warrior and chief. "I feel his presence close by in my blood and imagination," Momaday writes, "and I sing him an honor song." Here, too, are meditations on mortality, love, and loss, as well as reflections on the incomparable and holy landscape of the Southwest. The Death of Sitting Bear evokes the essence of human experience and speaks to us all.
The Golden Age of the American Essay by
A one-of-a-kind anthology of American essays on a wide range of subjects by a dazzling array of mid-century writers at the top of their form. AN ANCHOR ORIGINAL. A one-of-a-kind anthology of American essays on a wide range of subjects by a dazzling array of mid-century writers at the top of their form. The three decades that followed World War II were an exceptionally fertile period for American essays. The explosion of journals and magazines, the rise of public intellectuals, and breakthroughs in the arts inspired a flowering of literary culture. At the same time, the many problems that confronted mid-century America--racism, sexism, nuclear threat, war, poverty, and environmental degradation among them--proved fruitful topics for America's best minds. In The Golden Age of the American Essay, Phillip Lopate assembles a dazzling array of famous writers, critics, sociologists, theologians, historians, activists, theorists, humorists, poets, and novelists. Here are writers like James Agee, E. B. White, A. J. Liebling, Randall Jarrell, and Mary McCarthy, pivoting from the comic indignities of daily life to world peace, consumerism, and restaurants in Paris. Here is Norman Mailer on Jackie Kennedy, Vladimir Nabokov on Lolita,Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," and Richard Hofstadter's "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Here are Gore Vidal, Rachel Carson, James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, John Updike, Joan Didion, and many more, in a treasury of brilliant writing that has stood the test of time.
Irony and Sarcasm by
A biography of two troublesome words.Isn't it ironic? Or is it? Never mind, I'm just being sarcastic (or am I?). Irony and sarcasm are two of the most misused, misapplied, and misunderstood words in our conversational lexicon. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, psycholinguist Roger Kreuz offers an enlightening and concise overview of the life and times of these two terms, mapping their evolution from Greek philosophy and Roman rhetoric to modern literary criticism to emojis. Kreuz describes eight different ways that irony has been used through the centuries, proceeding from Socratic to dramatic to cosmic irony. He explains that verbal irony-irony as it is traditionally understood-refers to statements that mean something different (frequently the opposite) of what is literally intended, and defines sarcasm as a type of verbal irony. Kreuz outlines the prerequisites for irony and sarcasm (one of which is a shared frame of reference); clarifies what irony is not (coincidence, paradox, satire) and what it can be (among other things, a socially acceptable way to express hostility); recounts ways that people can signal their ironic intentions; and considers the difficulties of online irony. Finally, he wonders if, because irony refers to so many different phenomena, people may gradually stop using the word, with sarcasm taking over its verbal duties.
Not Fade Away: Poetic Prose Monologues by
Not Fade Away is a book that blurs the genres of poetry and fiction. The book presents three autobiographical sequences that recount the narrator's experiences. Similar to The Satyricon by Petronius, the anonymous Medieval Irish Romance Sweeney Astray, later works like Arthur Rimbaud's A Season in Hell, or the poetic and sometimes satirical fiction of Samuel Beckett, Henry Miller, Kenneth Patchen, Saul Bellow, Bohumil Hrabel, and Thomas Bernhard, Not Fade Away explores the ravages and passion of the quest of self-discovery, fantasy, political satire and diatribe, dreams, the contemplative life and erotic destiny.
Now Comes Good Sailing: Writers Reflect on Henry David Thoreau by
From twenty-seven of today's leading writers, an anthology of original pieces on the author of Walden Features essays by Jennifer Finney Boylan * Kristen Case * George Howe Colt * Gerald Early * Paul Elie * Will Eno * Adam Gopnik * Lauren Groff * Celeste Headlee * Pico Iyer * Alan Lightman * James Marcus * Megan Marshall * Michelle Nijhuis * Zoë Pollak * Jordan Salama * Tatiana Schlossberg * A. O. Scott * Mona Simpson * Stacey Vanek Smith * Wen Stephenson * Robert Sullivan * Amor Towles * Sherry Turkle * Geoff Wisner * Rafia Zakaria * and a cartoon by Sandra Boynton The world is never done catching up with Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), the author of Walden, "Civil Disobedience," and other classics. A prophet of environmentalism and vegetarianism, an abolitionist, and a critic of materialism and technology, Thoreau even seems to have anticipated a world of social distancing in his famous experiment at Walden Pond. In Now Comes Good Sailing, twenty-seven of today's leading writers offer wide-ranging original pieces exploring how Thoreau has influenced and inspired them--and why he matters more than ever in an age of climate, racial, and technological reckoning. Here, Lauren Groff retreats from the COVID-19 pandemic to a rural house and writing hut, where, unable to write, she rereads Walden; Pico Iyer describes how Thoreau provided him with an unlikely guidebook to Japan; Gerald Early examines Walden and the Black quest for nature; Rafia Zakaria reflects on solitude, from Thoreau's Concord to her native Pakistan; Mona Simpson follows in Thoreau's footsteps at Maine's Mount Katahdin; Jennifer Finney Boylan reads Thoreau in relation to her experience of coming out as a trans woman; Adam Gopnik traces Thoreau's influence on the New Yorker editor E. B. White and his book Charlotte's Web; and there's much more. The result is a lively and compelling collection that richly demonstrates the countless ways Thoreau continues to move, challenge, and provoke readers today.
Outward: Adrienne Rich's Expanding Solitudes by
The first scholarly study of Adrienne Rich's full career examines the poet through her developing approach to the transformative potential of relationships Adrienne Rich is best known as a feminist poet and activist. This iconic status owes especially to her work during the 1970s, while the distinctive political and social visions she achieved during the second half of her career remain inadequately understood. In Outward, poet, scholar, and novelist Ed Pavli? considers Rich's entire oeuvre to argue that her most profound contribution in poems is her emphasis on not only what goes on "within us" but also what goes on "between us." Guided by this insight, Pavli? shows how Rich's most radical work depicts our lives--from the public to the intimate--in shared space rather than in owned privacy. Informed by Pavli?'s friendship and correspondence with Rich, Outward explores how her poems position visionary possibilities to contend with cruelty and violence in our world. Employing an innovative framework, Pavli? examines five kinds of solitude reflected in Rich's poems: relational solitude, social solitude, fugitive solitude, dissident solitude, and radical solitude. He traces the importance of relationships to her early writing before turning to Rich's explicitly antiracist and anticapitalist work in the 1980s, which culminates with her most extensive sequence, "An Atlas of the Difficult World." Pavli? concludes by examining the poet's twenty-first century work and its depiction of relationships that defy historical divisions based on region, race, class, gender, and sexuality. A deftly written engagement in which one poet works within the poems of another, Outward reveals the development of a major feminist thinker in successive phases as Rich furthers her intimate and erotic, social and political reach. Pavli? illuminates Rich's belief that social divisions and the power of capital inform but must never fully script our identities or our relationships to each other.
Paradise by
From the Nobel Prize winner, a coming-of-age story that illuminates the harshness and beauty of an Africa on the brink of colonization "[Gurnah's novels] recoil from stereotypical descriptions and open our gaze to a culturally diversified East Africa unfamiliar to many in other parts of the world." --Nobel Committee for Literature at the Swedish Academy Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award, Paradise was characterized by the Nobel Prize committee as Abdulrazak Gurnah's "breakthrough" work. It is at once the chronicle of an African boy's coming-of-age, a tragic love story, and a tale of the corruption of African tradition by European colonialism. Sold by his father in repayment of a debt, twelve-year-old Yusuf is thrown from his simple rural life into complexities of pre-colonial urban East Africa. Through Yusuf's eyes, Gurnah depicts communities at war, trading safaris gone awry, and the universal trials of adolescence. The result is what Publishers Weekly calls a "vibrant" and "powerful" work that "evokes the Edenic natural beauty of a continent on the verge of full-scale imperialist takeover."
Poet Warrior: A Memoir by
National bestseller An ALA Notable Book Three-term poet laureate Joy Harjo offers a vivid, lyrical, and inspiring call for love and justice in this contemplation of her trailblazing life. Joy Harjo, the first Native American to serve as U.S. poet laureate, invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic, and wise follow-up to Crazy Brave, Poet Warrior reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of compassion and healing, poetry with the power to unearth the truth and demand justice. Harjo listens to stories of ancestors and family, the poetry and music that she first encountered as a child, and the messengers of a changing earth--owls heralding grief, resilient desert plants, and a smooth green snake curled up in surprise. She celebrates the influences that shaped her poetry, among them Audre Lorde, N. Scott Momaday, Walt Whitman, Muscogee stomp dance call-and-response, Navajo horse songs, rain, and sunrise. In absorbing, incantatory prose, Harjo grieves at the loss of her mother, reckons with the theft of her ancestral homeland, and sheds light on the rituals that nourish her as an artist, mother, wife, and community member. Moving fluidly between prose, song, and poetry, Harjo recounts a luminous journey of becoming, a spiritual map that will help us all find home. Poet Warrior sings with the jazz, blues, tenderness, and bravery that we know as distinctly Joy Harjo.
Pushcart Prize XLV by
Pushcart Prize XLV is continuing evidence that much of today's vibrant writing appears only in small journals and book presses. The series has been selected for Publishers Weekly Carey Thomas Award, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof citation, and the Poets and Writers/Barnes and Noble "Writers For Writers" award among others. Here are 70 authors from more than 50 presses as selected from the nominations of 220 distinguished Contributing Editors and 800 participating presses. Recent reviews include: "Essential." Library Journal "Must reading" Kirkus Reviews "Distinguished." New York Times Book Review
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR * PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * The highly anticipated biography of Sylvia Plath that focuses on her remarkable literary and intellectual achievements, while restoring the woman behind the long-held myths about her life and art. "One of the most beautiful biographies I've ever read." --Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller, Untamed With a wealth of never-before-accessed materials, Heather Clark brings to life the brilliant Sylvia Plath, who had precocious poetic ambition and was an accomplished published writer even before she became a star at Smith College. Refusing to read Plath's work as if her every act was a harbinger of her tragic fate, Clark considers the sociopolitical context as she thoroughly explores Plath's world: her early relationships and determination not to become a conventional woman and wife; her troubles with an unenlightened mental health industry; her Cambridge years and thunderclap meeting with Ted Hughes; and much more. Clark's clear-eyed portraits of Hughes, his lover Assia Wevill, and other demonized players in the arena of Plath's suicide promote a deeper understanding of her final days. Along with illuminating readings of the poems themselves, Clark's meticulous, compassionate research brings us closer than ever to the spirited woman and visionary artist who blazed a trail that still lights the way for women poets the world over.
When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky by
Louise Erdrich meets Karen Russell in this deliciously strange and daringly original novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble: set in 1926 Nashville, it follows a death-defying young Cherokee horse-diver who, with her companions from the Glendale Park Zoo, must get to the bottom of a mystery that spans centuries. Two Feathers, a young Cherokee horse-diver on loan to Glendale Park Zoo from a Wild West show, is determined to find her own way in the world. Two's closest friend at Glendale is Hank Crawford, who loves horses almost as much as she does. He is part of a high-achieving, land-owning Black family. Neither Two nor Hank fit easily into the highly segregated society of 1920s Nashville. When disaster strikes during one of Two's shows, strange things start to happen at the park. Vestiges of the ancient past begin to surface, apparitions appear, and then the hippo falls mysteriously ill. At the same time, Two dodges her unsettling, lurking admirer and bonds with Clive, Glendale's zookeeper and a World War I veteran, who is haunted--literally--by horrific memories of war. To get to the bottom of it, an eclectic cast of park performers, employees, and even the wealthy stakeholders must come together, making When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky an unforgettable and irresistible tale of exotic animals, lingering spirits, and unexpected friendship.