1923 results for "Literary Fiction"

The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

Teddy Wayne
When Whiting Writers' Award winner Teddy Wayne published his critically acclaimed debut, "Kapitoil," it was hailed as "one of the best novels of [this] generation" by the "Boston Globe" and was shortlisted for a spate of national prizes. Jonathan Franzen wrote in "The Daily Beast" that "no other writer, as far as I know, has invented such a funny and compelling voice and story for [this type of character.]" Now, in "The Love Song of Jonny Valentine," Wayne turns his sharp wit, flawless narrative ventriloquism, and humane sensibility to our monstrous obsession with fame. Megastar Jonny Valentine, eleven-year-old icon of bubblegum pop, knows that the fans don't love him for who he is. The talented singer's image, voice, and even hairdo have been relentlessly packaged--by his L.A. label and his hard-partying manager-mother, Jane--into bite-size pabulum. But within the marketing machine, somewhere, Jonny is still a vulnerable little boy, perplexed by his budding sexuality and his heartthrob status, dependent on Jane, and endlessly searching for his absent father in Internet fan sites, lonely emails, and the crowds of faceless fans. Poignant, brilliant, and viciously funny, told through the eyes of one of the most unforgettable child narrators, this literary masterpiece explores with devastating insight and empathy the underbelly of success in 21st-century America. "The Love Song of Jonny Valentine "is a tour de force by a standout voice of his generation.
Thorndike Press 2013 528 pages

Imagined cities: urban experience and the language of the novel

Alter, Robert
A literary investigation of how the modern metropolis--intoxicating, disturbing, powerful--changed perceptions and irrevocably altered the Western imagination. Alter traces the arc of literary development triggered by the runaway growth of urban centers from the early nineteenth century through the first two decades of the twentieth. As new technologies and arrangements of public and private space changed the ways people experienced time and space, the urban panorama became less coherent--a metropolis defying traditional representation and definition, a vast jumble of shifting fragments and glimpses--and writers were compelled to create new methods for conveying the experience of the city. In interpretations of novels by Flaubert, Dickens, Bely, Woolf, Joyce, and Kafka, Alter reveals the ways the city entered the literary imagination.--From publisher description.
Yale University Press 2005 175 pages

Atmospheric Disturbances

Rivka Galchen
When Dr. Leo Liebenstein's wife disappears, she leaves behind a single, confounding clue: a woman who looks, talks, and behaves exactly like her--or "almost "exactly like her--and even audaciously claims to be her. While everyone else is fooled by this imposter, Leo knows better than to trust his senses in matters of the heart. Certain that the original Rema is alive and in hiding, Leo embarks on a quixotic journey to reclaim his lost love. With the help of his psychiatric patient Harvey--who believes himself to be a secret agent who can control the weather--Leo attempts to unravel the mystery of the spousal switch. His investigation leads him to the enigmatic guidance of the meteorologist Dr. Tzvi Gal-Chen, the secret workings of the Royal Academy of Meteorology in their cosmic conflict with the 49 Quantum Fathers, and the unwelcome conviction that somehow he--or maybe his wife, or maybe even Harvey--lies at the center of all these unfathomables. From the streets of New York to the southernmost reaches of Patagonia, Leo's erratic quest becomes a test of how far he is willing to take his struggle against the seemingly uncontestable truth he knows in his heart to be false. "Atmospheric Disturbances "is at once a moving love story, a dark comedy, a psychological thriller, and a deeply disturbing portrait of a fracturing mind. With tremendous compassion and dazzling literary sophistication, Rivka Galchen investigates the moment of crisis when you suddenly realize that the reality you insist upon is no longer one you can accept, and the person you love has become merely the person you live with. This highly inventive debut explores the mysterious nature of human relationships, and how wespend our lives trying to weather the storms of our own making.
Thorndike Press 2008 401 pages

White Hunter, Black Heart

Peter Viertel
"It was a stellar cast gathered to make an epic masterpiece...a movie that could be made only by a mad genius. And John Wilson was a cinematic genius sent dangerously out of control by the madness of Africa itself. The human cost would be awesome, reflecting the tragic legacy for Africa of the white man's ignorance, arrogance...and passion. Modeled by John Huston, and the making of The African Queen." - page 4 of cover.
Renaissance Literary & Talent 2021-03 350 pages

Multidirectional memory: remembering the Holocaust in the age of decolonization

Rothberg, Michael
Rejects the model of competitive memory, i.e. the conception that collective memories of different groups, especially memories of victimization, confront one another in the public sphere, and eventually one group history blocks other group histories. Proposes a model of multidirectional memory, according to which various group memories interact productively and borrow from one another. In the post-World War II West, a process of coming to terms with the Nazi Holocaust of Jews went on side by side with a process of decolonization and coming to terms with Europe's and America's colonial and slavery past. In this process, the attitude that the Holocaust is unique as a historical phenomenon proved to be harmful and has been increasingly rejected. Discusses a number of artworks, literary works, and films, mainly by French artists and authors (e.g. Taslitzky, Fougeron, Césaire, Schwarz-Bart, Delbo, Rouch and Morin) as well as by some non-French ones (e.g. Arendt, W.E.B. DuBois, Caryl Phillips, Haneke), in which racism and events of the colonial past have been juxtaposed with the Holocaust.
Stanford University Press 2009-06-15 379 pages

The Guermantes way

Proust, Marcel
The third volume of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century Mark Treharne's acclaimed new translation of The Guermantes Way will introduce a new generation of American readers to the literary richness of Marcel Proust. The third volume in Penguin Classics' superb new edition of In Search of Lost Time—the first completely new translation of Proust's masterpiece since the 1920s—brings us a more comic and lucid prose than English readers have previously been able to enjoy. After the relative intimacy of the first two volumes of In Search of Lost Time, The Guermantes Way opens up a vast, dazzling landscape of fashionable Parisian life in the late nineteenth century, as the narrator enters the brilliant, shallow world of the literary and aristocratic salons. Both a salute to and a devastating satire of a time, place, and culture, The Guermantes Way defines the great tradition of novels that follow the initiation of a young man into the ways of the world.
Penguin 2002 619 pages

Sodom and Gomorrah

Proust, Marcel
Sodom and Gomorrah (1921/22) is the fourth volume of Marcel Proust's seven-part novel In Search of Lost Time . Being the last volume that had Proust's direct involvement, Sodom and Gomorrah is a story of love, jealousy and family from a master of Modernist literature. Praised by Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Michael Chabon, and Graham Greene, In Search of Lost Time explores the nature of memory and time while illuminating the history of homosexuality in nineteenth century Europe. The narrator finally reveals what he witnessed before Princess de. Guermantes' party: Charlus followed Jupien into his shop and the two shared an intimate encounter. Returning to the festivities, the narrator reflects on the very nature of inverts and the secret society of which they must belong. Attempting to put the suffering of his grandmother out of his mind, he tries with some success to pursue the companionship of Albertine; only to grow suspicious of her activities and possible lesbianism. Trying desperately to find a place in this social circle, the narrator finds himself engulfed by jealousy and trapped in a world of romance, lust, and secrets of which he is now willfully taking part. This edition of Marcel Proust's Sodom and Gomorrah is a classic work of French literature reimagined for modern readers. Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book. With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.
Mint Editions 2023-08-08 488 pages

No Laughing Matter

Joseph Heller,Speed Vogel
An uproarious and frank memoir of illness and recovery, No Laughing Matter is a story of friendship and recuperation from the author of the classic Catch-22 . It all began one typical day in the life of Joe Heller. He was jogging four miles at a clip these days, working on his novel God Knows , coping with the complications of an unpleasant divorce, and pigging out once or twice a week on Chinese food with cronies like Mel Brooks, Mario Puzo, and his buddy of more than twenty years, Speed Vogel. He was feeling perfectly fine that day—but within twenty-four hours he would be in intensive care at Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital. He would remain hospitalized for nearly six months and leave in a wheelchair. Joseph Heller had Guillain-Barré syndrome, a debilitating, sometimes fatal condition that can leave its victims paralyzed from head to toe. The clan gathered immediately. Speed—sometime artist, sometime businessman, sometime herring taster, and now a coauthor—moved into Joe's apartment as messenger, servant, and shaman. Mel Brooks, arch-hypochondriac of the Western world, knew as much about Heller's condition as the doctors. Mario Puzo, author of the preeminent gangster novel of our time, proved to be the most reluctant man ever to be dragged along on a hospital visit. These and lots of others rallied around the sickbed in a show of loyalty and friendship that not only built a wild and spirited camaraderie but helped bring Joe Heller, writer and buddy extraordinaire, through his greatest crisis. This book is an inspiring, hilarious memoir of a calamitous illness and the rocky road to recuperation—as only the author of Catch-22 and the friend who helped him back to health could tell it. No Laughing Matter is as wacky, terrifying, and greathearted as any fiction Joseph Heller ever wrote.
Simon & Schuster 2004-10-01 336 pages

The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World

Harlan Ellison
Five years in the making, the Edgeworks Abbey Archive represents Harlan Ellison's last word on his written legacy. Researched and edited by the author's long-time associate, Jason Davis, under the supervision of Harlan and Susan Ellison, this collection assembles the preferred texts of each story and essay along with previously uncollected and unpublished material to create the definitive edition.A FEW (AMONG THE MANY) QUESTIONS THIS BOOK ANSWERS: What stopped Attila the Hun from sacking the Holy City of Rome in the year 452 when it lay defenseless before him? Where is the sunken continent of Atlantis and what will happen if it rises? Has anyone ever made an interesting case for the merits of waging war, and how does war benefit the human race? What happened When Santa Claus attacked Ronald Reagan in the men's toilet of the abandoned Camarillo State Mental Institution? Is it true that Jesus had a homosexual liaison with Prometheus? Does the Abominable Snowman exist, and what's his sex life like? What's the worst thing that can happen to those who do too much bad dope? How do you identify and survive the attentions of emotional vampires? Are you listening? Why are the bizarre stories of Harlan Ellison so damned popular, translated into thirteen languages, and made into movies; why do they influence a whole generation of younger writers, provoke lynch mobs, and win this Ellison person such an unconscionable array of literary awards? ASK NOT FOR WHOM THIS BOOK TOILS. IT TOILS FUR THEE, KIDDO.
Edgeworks Abbey 2022-02-24 386 pages

Warriors

George R. R. Martin,Gardner Dozois
George R. R. Martin, from his Introduction to Warriors: "People have been telling stories about warriors for as long as they have been telling stories. Since Homer first sang the wrath of Achilles and the ancient Sumerians set down their tales of Gilgamesh, warriors, soldiers, and fighters have fascinated us; they are a part of every culture, every literary tradition, every genre. All Quiet on the Western Front , From Here to Eternity , and The Red Badge of Courage have become part of our literary canon, taught in classrooms all around the country and the world. "Our contributors make up an all-star lineup of award-winning and bestselling writers, representing a dozen different publishers and as many genres. We asked each of them for the same thing---a story about a warrior. Some chose to write in the genre they're best known for. Some decided to try something different. You will find warriors of every shape, size, and color in these pages, warriors from every epoch of human history, from yesterday and today and tomorrow, and from worlds that never were. Some of the stories will make you sad, some will make you laugh, and many will keep you on the edge of your seat." Every story in this volume appears here for the first time. Included are: a long novella from the world of his Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, a new tale of "Lord John" by Diana Gabaldon, and an epic of humanity at bay by David Weber. Also present are original tales by David Ball, Peter S. Beagle, Lawrence Block, Gardner Dozois, Joe Haldeman, Robin Hobb, Cecelia Holland, Joe R. Lansdale, David Morrell, Naomi Novik, James Rollins, Steven Saylor, Robert Silverberg, S. M. Stirling, Carrie Vaughn, Howard Waldrop, and Tad Williams. Many of these writers are bestsellers. All of them are storytellers of the highest quality. Together they make a volume of unforgettable reading.
Tor Publishing Group 2013-02-26 736 pages

Letter to Father

Kafka, Franz
Kafka never replied to his father's letter. Kafka's letter was likewise only released after his death. In it, Franz Kafka discusses his father's relationship with him, which he is likely to find difficult, especially as the father vehemently rejects the son's wedding preparations. The son regards himself as a lesser being than his father. The literary, effeminate son was unlikely to acquire the recognition of his hands-on father, a butcher who had made it through hard labor. Several elements from the accusation Letter to the Father are explored throughout Kafka's writings for this purpose. Biography Franz Kafka was born on July 3, 1883, in Prague, to Jewish parents. Kafka joined the "Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungs-Anstalt" (Workers' Accident Insurance Institution) in 1908, where he remained a civil servant until his early retirement in 1922, after completing his PhD in law. Franz Kafka suffered a hemorrhage in late summer 1917, which led to the development of TB, from which he died on June 3, 1924, at the age of 41.
Independently published 2022-04-20 58 pages

Collected stories

Ozick, Cynthia
Masterly collection of short stories by an American novelist at the height of her powers. It is the stories upon which Cynthia Ozick's literary reputation rests. She writes about bitterness, cruelty and compulsion with brutal acuity and tenderness. She has created a timeless collection in which Greek mythology, superstition and the religious and cultural experience of the Jewish diaspora in America collide. The Pagan Rabbi is seduced by a tree sprite after seeing his daughter rescued from drowning by a water sprite. Such ecstasy is not permitted to mortals and so the scholar must die. He hangs himself with his prayer shawl as he watches the strangely beautiful nymph decay. In Envy, a Yiddish poet who watches the success of a contemporary, becomes very like a character in an I.B. Singer story entrapped by his anguish and haunted by the memory of a child. In the Doctor's Wife, the most gentle of the stories, a poor doctor not unlike Chekhov endures family life in which he is adored by his three sisters and oppressed by his family obligations. In these stories, we see Ozick defining herself and her literary territory. The stories may be read purely as evocations of Jewish experience, where time seems to have by-passed these characters. In the Butterfly and the Traffic Light, Jerusalem is seen upon a hill as only it can be in legend, and America is said not to have cities scarred by battles. This is a dazzling collection of short stories by an internationally celebrated novelist.
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2021 484 pages

The Robot who Looked Like Me

Robert Sheckley
In “The Robot Who Looked Like Me,” a busy man and a busy woman find a way to carve out time to romance each other—by having look-alike robots made to do the job—who then run away together.The twelve other stories in this collection are “Slaves of Time,” “Voices,” “A Supplicant in Space,” “Sneak Previews,” “Zirn Left Unguarded, the Jenghik Palace in Flames, John Westerly Dead,” “Welcome to the Standard Nightmare,” “The Never-Ending Western Movie,” “What Is Life?”, “I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair Is Biting His Leg,” “Is That What People Do?”, “Silversmith Wishes,” and “End City.”From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. Open Road is proud to republish his acclaimed body of work, with nearly thirty volumes of full-length fiction and short story collections. Rediscover, or discover for the first time, a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times , was “a precursor to Douglas Adams.”
Bantam 1982 179 pages

The friends we keep

Green, Jane
Evvie, Maggie, and Topher have known each other since university. Their friendship was something they swore would last forever. Now years have passed, the friends have drifted apart, and none of them ever found the lives they wanted - the lives they dreamed of when they were young and everything seemed possible. Evvie starved herself to become a supermodel but derailed her career by sleeping with a married man. Maggie married Ben, the boy she fell in love with at university, never imagining the heartbreak his drinking would cause. Topher became a successful actor but the shame of a childhood secret shut him off from real intimacy. By their thirtieth reunion, these old friends have lost touch with each other and with the people they dreamed of becoming. Together again, they have a second chance at happiness... until a dark secret is revealed that changes everything. The Friends We Keep is about how despite disappointments we've had or mistakes we've made, it's never too late to find a place to call home.
Berkley 2019 373 pages

Three War Stories

David Mamet
Spanning centuries and continents, Mamet uses war and its players to explore, among other themes, redemption and forgiveness as they unfold in the context of conflict in the form of three novellas. In The Redwing , the first of the three novellas, a 19th Century Secret Service naval officer turned prisoner, then novelist and finally memoirist recounts his own transformations during the course of his service and imprisonment. The protagonist in Notes on Plain Warfare examines religion through the prism of the American Indian wars. Finally, The Handle and the Hold is a vivid, dialogue-driven tale of two ex-military men who steal a plane in the month before the Israeli War of Independence. Finely wrought, Mamet eloquently depicts the psychological brutality conflict raises in the landscape of the mind.
Argo Navis 2013 240 pages