The distinguished poet and critic argues for the abiding relevance of a great literary mind of the twentieth century Lionel Trilling, regarded at the time of his death in 1975 as America's preeminent literary critic, is today often seen as a relic of a vanished era. His was an age when literary criticism and ideas seemed to matter profoundly in the intellectual life of the country. In this eloquent book, Adam Kirsch shows that Trilling, far from being obsolete, is essential to understanding our current crisis of literary confidence--and to overcoming it. By reading Trilling primarily as a writer and thinker, Kirsch demonstrates how Trilling's original and moving work continues to provide an inspiring example of a mind creating itself through its encounters with texts. Why Trilling Matters introduces all of Trilling's major writings and situates him in the intellectual landscape of his century, from Communism in the 1930s to neoconservatism in the 1970s. But Kirsch goes deeper, addressing today's concerns about the decline of literature, reading, and even the book itself, and finds that Trilling has more to teach us now than ever before. As Kirsch writes, "Trilling's essays are not exactly literary criticism" but, like all literature, "ends in themselves."

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

A series of allogorical dreamscapes. The narrative unfolds to find Jarman asleep at his desk, surrounded by Christian imagery. His dreams transpose New Testament events into a contemporary context, examining repressive attitudes to gay sex and exploring issues about the Church's attitude to homosexuality and its role in the AIDS crisis.

James Salter's exalted place in American letters is based largely on the intense admiration of other writers, but his work resonates far beyond the realm of fellow craftsmen, addressing themes--youth, war, erotic love, marriage, life abroad, friendship--that speak to us all. Following the publication of his first novel, Salter left behind a military career of great promise to write full-time and--through decades of searching, exacting work--became one of American literature's master stylists. Only months before he died, at the age of eighty-nine, he agreed to serve as the first Kapnick Writer-in-Residence at the University of Virginia, where he composed and delivered the three lectures presented in this book and introduced by his friend and fellow novelist, National Book Award-winning author John Casey. Salter speaks to us here with an easy intimacy, sharing his unceasing enchantment with the books that made up his reading life, including works by Balzac, Flaubert, Babel (whose prose is "like a handful of radium"), Dreiser, Celine, Faulkner. These talks provide an invaluable opportunity to see the way in which a great writer reads. They also offer a candid look at the writing life--the rejection letters, not one but two negative reviews in the New York Times for the same book, writing in the morning or at night and worrying about money during the long afternoons. Salter raises the question, Why does one write? For wealth? For admiration, or a sense of "importance"? Confronting a blank sheet that always offers too many choices, practicing a vocation that often demands one write instead of live, the answer for Salter was creating a style that captured experience, in a world where anything not written down fades away. -- Amazon.com.

The photographer Steve Bloom is off on another expedition, this time to see the animals living at the freezing poles: polar bears, penguins, whales and seals. The book follows Steve's journey as he finds out how these animals survive day to day how they live, grow up, hunt and have babies. His on-location account and dramatic photography make for an exciting commentary. Each key animal polar bear, whale, penguin, albatross and seal appears in a 3?4-spread photograph and a close-up box feature that introduces facts. Within the diary narrative, information and photographs are presented in a visually exciting way, from letting the reader watch how a baby penguin grows into an adult, to seeing a roll call of the different kinds of penguin. There are feature boxes throughout, with tips for children who want to take their own photos of animals, and at the back of the book there are two spreads further explaining how to photograph animals in the wild or at home.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

In rural nineteenth-century Russia, a tangle of hopeless romances brings chaos to a country estate. Natalya, the wife of the wealthy estate-owner, is in love with her son’s tutor; a neighbor has taken a liking to Natalya’s ward, who has her eyes set elsewhere; and Natalya’s long-time friend Rakitin may crave more from their platonic relationship. A tale of young love, old love, and everything in between, THREE DAYS IN THE COUNTRY is a riveting update on Turgenev’s heartbreaking classic.

A compilation of first-person accounts by survivors and witnesses of the Jewish Holocaust.

Once in Europa

An anthology of poetry that captures the spirit of Jewish life during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

"Bruce Vilanch, a storyteller without peer, has written a tell-all . . . on himself! And it's hilarious! He's finally coming clean and owning up to his part in creating some of the worst television of the twentieth century, and that's saying a lot. There's no one like him. As they've been saying since I discovered him as a cub reporter at the Chicago Tribune , when you're in a pinch . . . Get Bruce!" --BETTE MIDLER Bruce Vilanch is known as a go-to comedy writer for award shows, sitcoms, and over-the-top variety specials, but he has also been responsible for quite a few of the most legendary disasters ever made. Some of his work lives in infamy-- The Star Wars Holiday Special , The Paul Lynde Halloween Special , Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White at the Oscars, and The Brady Bunch Variety Hour . How did these ever seem like a good idea? Well, everyone has screwed up a few times, or had their work screwed up by others. It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time is a lifetime reflection of what Vilanch has experienced, learned, and forgotten in decades of working in show business, specifically the south forty acres known as comedy. It involves very famous people and people who were not very famous but should have been. It explains to the people in the audience who say to themselves, once they have gotten their jaw off the floor, "'How did this ever get made?" Don't we all want to know?

Kosher pork—an oxymoron? Anna Shternshis's fascinating study traces the creation of a Soviet Jewish identity that disassociated Jewishness from Judaism. The cultural transformation of Soviet Jews between 1917 and 1941 was one of the most ambitious experiments in social engineering of the past century. During this period, Russian Jews went from relative isolation to being highly integrated into the new Soviet culture and society, while retaining a strong ethnic and cultural identity. This identity took shape during the 1920s and 1930s, when the government attempted to create a new Jewish culture, "national in form" and "socialist in content." Soviet and Kosher is the first study of key Yiddish documents that brought these Soviet messages to Jews, notably the "Red Haggadah," a Soviet parody of the traditional Passover manual; songs about Lenin and Stalin; scripts from regional theaters; Socialist Realist fiction; and magazines for children and adults. More than 200 interviews conducted by the author in Russia, Germany, and the United States testify to the reception of these cultural products and provide a unique portrait of the cultural life of the average Soviet Jew.

"This outstanding collection of essays explores Hannah Arendt's thought against the background of recent world-political events unfolding since September 11, 2001, and engages in a contentious dialogue with one of the greatest political thinkers of the past century, with the conviction that she remains one of our contemporaries. Themes such as moral and political equality, action and natality, and judgment and freedom are reevaluated with fresh insights by a group of thinkers who are themselves well known for their original contributions to political thought. Other essays focus on novel and little-discussed themes in the literature by highlighting Arendt's views of sovereignty, international law and genocide, nuclear weapons and revolutions, imperialism and Eurocentrism, and her contrasting images of Europe and America. Each essay displays not only superb Arendt scholarship but also stylistic flair and analytical tenacity"--

"Richard Hell may best be known as a punk icon, a founding member of seminal bands Television, the Heartbreakers, and The Voidoids, but for decades he's been a prominent voice in American letters. Through his novels Go Now and Godlike, and his critically acclaimed autobiography, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, Hell has proven himself as a talented and insightful writer across many genres, in many forms. But one might argue that Richard's true genius lies in shorter form as a writer on culture. "Love comes in spurts," Hell once sang, and that could well describe the intensity of his penetrating and wickedly droll criticism. Massive Pissed Love is a collection of Hell's ruminations on art, literature, and music, among other things, that's like a candy box of reading treats, a bag of shiny marbles, a cabinet of mementos and uncanny fetishes. However one thinks of it, it's a joy to read from start to finish and a deeply necessary addition to the oeuvre of one of the sharpest minds and sensibilities at work today"--

In this ground-breaking study, Rachel Elior offers a comprehensive theory of the crystallization of the early stages of the mystical tradition in Judaism based on the numerous ancient scrolls and manuscripts published in the last few decades. Her wide-ranging research, scrupulously documented, enables her to demonstrate an uninterrupted line linking the priestly traditions of the Temple, the mystical liturgical literature found in the Qumran caves and associated directly and indirectly with the Merkavah tradition of around the second and first centuries BCE, and the mystical works of the second to fifth centuries CE known as Heikhalot literature. The key factor linking all these texts, according to Professor Elior's theory, is that many of those who wrote them were members of the priestly classes. Prevented from being able to perform the rituals of sacred service in the Temple as ordained in the biblical tradition, they channelled their religious impetus in other directions to create a new spiritual focus. The mystical tradition they developed centered first on a heavenly Chariot Throne known as the Merkavah, and later on heavenly sanctuaries known as Heikhalot. In this way the priestly class developed an alternative focus for spirituality, based on a super temporal liturgical and ritual relationship with ministering angels in the supernal sanctuaries. This came to embrace an entire mystical world devoted to sustaining religious liturgical tradition and ritual memory in the absence of the Temple. This lyrical investigation of the origins and workings of this supernal world is sure to become a standard work in the study of early Jewish mysticism.

The best kind of mystery, the kind that never stops haunting you. Entertainment Weekly A work of melancholic beauty . . . Sincere, shattering, magnificent. L Express In the stillness of his Paris apartment, Jean Daragane has built a life of total solitude. Then a surprising phone call shatters the silence of an unusually hot September, and the threatening voice on the other end of the line leaves Daragane wary but irresistibly curious. Almost at once, he finds himself entangled with a shady gambler and a beautiful, fragile young woman, who draw Daragane into the mystery of a decades-old murder. The investigation will force him to confront the memory of a trauma he had all but buried. This masterly novel penetrates the deepest enigmas of identity and compels us to ask whether we ever know who we truly are. Moody . . . Lyrical . . . A pleasure. Kirkus Reviews A writer unlike any other and a worthy recipient of the Nobel. Wall Street Journal Patrick Modiano is the author of more than twenty novels, including several bestsellers. He has won the Prix Goncourt, the Grand Prix National des Lettres, and many other honors. In 2014 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. He lives in Paris. "

The Asatir (Samaritan Book of the Secrets of Moses), was translated by Dr. Gaster and published in 1927. He claims it was compiled around the middle or end of the third century B.C., and is the "oldest book in existence of this kind of literature." This edition also contains The Pitron (Samaritan Commentary) and the Samaritan Story of the Death of Moses. "The best way to describe the Asatir is to call it a Midrash, Aggadah, or legendary supplement to the Pentateuch. Unlike other Apocrypha with which it has much in common, the author does not attempt to retail anew the sacred history and to present it in a specific form, and with a deliberate tendency. He is content to leave the sacred scripture as it stands, without meddling with its narrative and without trying to readjust the events recounted therein, according to a certain preconceived system either legal or astronomical."