At the dawn of the Reagan era Martin Bauman, nineteen, clever, ambitious and insecure, is enrolled at a prestigious college with a hard-won place under the tutelage of the legendary and enigmatic Stanley Flint, a man who can make or break writing careers with the flick of a weary hand. Martin is poised on the threshold of the writing life, his twin desires to get into print and to find his way out of the closet. Moving through the century's most licentious decade - the decade of cocaine, wild parties, huge advances and the tragic comedown of AIDS - Martin matures from brilliant student to apprentice in a Manhattan publishing house to fully fledged member of the New York literary brat pack. Yet despite his apparent success, his emotional and creative desires refuse, stubbornly, to be satisfied and his every achievement is haunted by the austere and troubling image of literary perfection, his elusive mentor, Stanley Flint. Subtle, erotic, honest and funny, David Leavitt's deliciously sharp, multi-layered dissection of literary and sexual mores lays bare the life of the artist, in all his venal, envious, self-loathing, poignant glory.

Medical Progress and Social Reality is an anthology of nineteenth-century literature on medicine and medical practice. Situated at the interdisciplinary juncture of medicine, history, and literature, it includes mostly fictional but also some nonfictional works by British, French, American, and Russian writers that describe the day-to-day social realities of medicine during a period of momentous change. Issues addressed in these works include the hierarchy in the profession, the use of new instruments such as the stethoscope, the advent of women doctors, the function of the hospital, and the shifting balance of power between physicians and patients. The volume provides an introductory overview of the most important aspects of medical progress in the nineteenth century, and it includes an annotated bibliography of further readings in medical history and literature. Selections from Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, Gustave Flaubert, Sarah Orne Jewett, Sinclair Lewis, Mikhail Bulgakov, and others are included, as well as the American Medical Association's 1847 Code of Ethics.

"A community college professor whose career has stagnated, and a wife and mother whose marriage has tumbled into a spiral of apathy and distrust, Lena is frustrated at the seeming "impossibility of happiness." As Lena makes her way to present a paper at a remote New England conference, a chance encounter with an old schoolmate a once average-seeming teenager who has since achieved international fame as a human rights advocate-catapults Lena into memories of their life changing summer together, as counselors at a summer camp in the backwoods of rural Russia during the massive cultural changes of perestroika in the 1980s"--

""The Fox sisters grew up just outside of Rochester, NY, in a house that had a reputation for being haunted, due in large part to a series of strange "rappings" or "knockings" that plagued its inhabitants. Fed up by whatever was responsible for the knockings, the youngest of the sisters (who was twelve at the time) challenged the ghost and ended up communicating with the spirit of Charles Haynes, who had been murdered in the house and buried in the cellar.Thanks to the enthusiasm of one Isaac Post, the Fox sisters became instantly famous for talking to the dead, launching the Spiritualist Movement in the US. After taking Rochester by storm, the sisters moved to New York where they were the most famous mediums of the time, giving seances for hundreds of people.Then, it all fell apart, and the sisters were exposed as frauds. Nevertheless, even today the Fox sisters are considered to be the founders of Spiritualism, one of the most popular religious movements of the past couple centuries (consider the success of Long Island Medium and the hundreds of thousands who visit Lily Dale every year). Rich in historical detail, Rochester Knockings novelizes the rise and fall of these most infamous of mediums. Hubert Haddad was born in Tunisia, and is the author of dozens of works, including the novels Palestine (winner of the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie), Tango chinois, and La Condition magique (winner of the Grand Prix du Roman de la Socie;te; des Gens de Lettres)"--

Book by Hurst, Fannie

Hermann Sudermann's "The Song of Songs" explores the complexities of love and passion within a historical setting. This enduring work of German literature, presented here in English translation, delves into the intricacies of human relationships and the timeless allure of romance. A compelling example of historical fiction, the novel captures the emotional intensity of its characters as they navigate the challenges of love and desire. Sudermann's prose masterfully portrays the depths of human emotion, making "The Song of Songs" a resonant and engaging read for anyone interested in classic literary fiction. Experience the enduring power of this translated work, a testament to the timeless nature of love stories and the enduring appeal of German literature. Prepare to be captivated by a narrative that explores the universal themes of the heart, meticulously presented for your reading pleasure. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

literary short fiction and writer interviews.

As with the first volume of Transcendent, Lethe Press has worked with a wonderful editor to select the best work of genderqueer stories of the fantastical, stranger, horrific, and weird published the prior year. Featuring stories by Merc Rustad, Jeanne Thornton, Brit Mandelo, and others, this anthology offers time-honored tropes of the genre--from genetic manipulation to zombies, portal fantasy to haunts--but told from a perspective that breaks the rigidity of gender and sexuality. A winner for the Lambda Literary Award for Best Transgender Fiction

Returning to print for the first time since the 1980s, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction is the origin point for decades of literary and theoretical criticism of science fiction and related genres. Darko Suvin's paradigm-setting definition of SF as "the literature of cognitive estrangement" established a robust theory of the genre that continues to spark fierce debate, as well as inspiring myriad intellectual descendants and disciples. Suvin's centuries-spanning history of the genre links SF to a long tradition of Utopian and satirical literatures crying out for a better world than this one, showing how SF and the imagination of Utopia are now forever intertwined. In addition to the 1979 text of the book, this edition contains three additional essays from Suvin that update, expand and reconsider the terms of his original intervention, as well as a new introduction and preface that situate the book in the context of the decades of SF studies that have followed in its wake.

Unlike the literary traditions of the United States, England, and France, the first century of Hebrew literature was lacking in women novelists; women tended to write poetry, while prose fiction was mainly the domain of male writers. Since the 1980s, however, there has been a virtual explosion of commercially successful Hebrew fiction by women that includes many traditionally male genres, such as the historical novel, fictional autobiography, and the mystery novel. No Room of Their Own is a comparative analysis of recent Israeli fiction by women and some of its Western models, from Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir to Marilyn French and Marie Cardinal. Feldman shows the richness and subtleties of Israeli women's fiction as she explores the themes of gender and nation, as well as the (non)representation of the "New Hebrew Woman" in five authors -- the "foremothers" of the contemporary boom in Israeli Women's fiction: Amalia Kahana-Carmon ( Up on Montifer, With Her on Her Way Home), Shulamith Hareven ( City of Many Days, Thirst, The Vocabulary of Peace), Netiva BenYehuda ( The Palmach Trilogy), Ruth Almog ( Women, The Story of a [Writer's] Block, Roots of Air), and Shulamit Lapid ( Gei Oni).

Product Description Welcome to Mark Leyner’s America, where you can order gallium arsenide sushi at a roadside diner, get loaded on a cocktail of growth hormones and anabolic steroids, and support your habit by appearing on TV game shows. Welcome to a wildly post-Einsteinian fictional universe where the locals include a speech pathologist with a waterbug fetish, a kamikaze airline pilot, and the lead singer for Brazil’s most notoriously nihilistic samba band. From Publishers Weekly These 17 loosely linked short stories are intelligent, funny and incredibly bizarre. Though not all are science fiction, each displays a supercharged cyberpunk writing style jam-packed with elements of tabloid journalism, bits of advertising slogans, references to kung fu films, literary allusions, television trivia, deadpan non sequiturs, puns and poetry. The fiercely imaginative Leyner ( I Smell Esther Williams ) announces: "Dad was in the basement centrifuging mouse spleen hybridoma, when I informed him that I'd enrolled at the Wilford Military Academy of Beauty." He also discusses the difficulty of finding a haberdashery near the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipyard and speculates on a televised encounter between Tennessee's youngest member of the House of Representatives and 17th-century metaphysician Baruch Spinoza. Squads of displaced, armed and dangerous combatants inhabit a young boy's bedroom in the marvelous "In the Kingdom of Boredom, I Wear the Royal Sweatpants." It's an exuberant, adventurous and audacious collection. Some of the pieces were originally published in Esquire, Harper's and Fiction International , among other magazines. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review "I really, really liked it. It's like nothing else. I laughed out loud in the bathroom." -- David Byrne Welcome to Mark Leyner's America, where you can order gallium arsenide sushi at a roadside diner, get loaded on a cocktail of growth hormones and steroids, and support your habit by appearing on TV game shows. Welcome to a wildly post-Einsteinian fictional universe where the locals include a speech pathologist with a waterbug fetish, a kamikaze airline pilot, and the lead singer for Brazil's most notoriously nihilistic samba band. My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist is fiction the brain can dance to, by one of the funniest and most subversive young writers of this or any other decade. "Most current fiction is as well made and exciting as floral wallpaper; but here is a writer willing to decorate the room with the contents of his own dynamited head." -- Entertainment Weekly "Reading this is like fishing in some hallucinated lake of the subconscious. No telling what term, idea, or thing you'll pull up next." -- Houston Post From the Back Cover This book is fiction the brain can dance to, by one of the funniest and most subversive young writers of this or any other decade. About the Author Mark Leyner is the author of two novels, Et Tu, Babe and The Tetherballs of Bougainville; two collections of stories , I Smell Esther Williams and Other Stories and My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist; and a collection of fiction, plays, and journalism, Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, The New Republic, George, and Harper’s.

“A moving act of absolution . . . . This strong novel about a girl who is debased but never destroyed pushes the reader to a new level of understanding of the things people do—and the things that are done to them.”— Washington Post Book World She has hair of ginger and lovely green eyes, and she has just been transported with her family from Terezín to Auschwitz. In short order, her father commits suicide, and her mother and younger brother are dispatched to the gas chambers, but fifteen-year-old Hanka Kauderzová is still alive. Faced with the choice of certain death in the camp or working in a German military brothel, she chooses a chance at life. Passing for an Aryan, Hanka spends her days in the brothel cold, hungry, fearful, and ashamed. She is sustained only by her loathing of the men who visit her and by a fierce, indomitable will to live. This devastatingly beautiful novel explores and delineates the impossible choices one sometimes has to make in life, when the fabric of the world is rent asunder. Soaring beyond the nightmare, it leaves the reader with a transcendent sense of hope. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Anzia Yezierska's "Children of Loneliness" explores the complex experiences of Jewish immigrants in New York City. This literary work delves into the challenges of social alienation and the struggles inherent in cultural assimilation. Through compelling prose, Yezierska examines the conflicts that arise between generations as they navigate new identities in a rapidly changing world. A poignant portrayal of the immigrant experience, "Children of Loneliness" offers a powerful glimpse into the lives of those seeking a new home while grappling with the loss of their traditions. The novel masterfully portrays the universal themes of identity, belonging, and the search for connection in an unfamiliar land, ensuring its enduring relevance. This carefully prepared print republication makes this important historical fiction accessible to all. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Beloved NPR commentator and popular author Andrei Codrescu makes a stunning return to historical fiction, detailing the adventurous life and erotic times of the famed illuminist Giacomo Casanova. In his national bestseller The Blood Countess, Andrei Codrescu brought to life the bloodthirsty royal Elizabeth Bathory, who embodied nearly all the contradictions of the seventeenth century. Now he depicts the astonishing life of the legendary Casanova, as the old adventurer relives his life while writing his memoirs in a provincial Bohemian castle at the end of the eighteenth century. Far from being defeated by age, Casanova delights in the maidservants, reacts with intellectual vigor to the unfolding of the French Revolution, and collaborates with Mozart on Don Giovanni. Long considered the rhapsodist of an age of aristocratic mirth, scandal, and innumerable affairs, Casanova was also a first-rate intellect who corresponded and argued with Voltaire and Rousseau. His published work, besides the celebrated History of My Life, includes a multivolume fantasy fiction novel that predates and anticipates Jules Verne; translations of Italian classics into French; and a number of plays that were produced on the great stages of Europe. Casanova's romantic legend overshadowed his literary work, which was, for the most part, not published until 1960. The fate of his writings was nearly as fabulous and intriguing as that of their author. Still, even in abridged, bowdlerized, and fragmentary form, Casanova's memoirs have inspired writers as diverse as Flaubert, Stendhal, Hermann Hesse, and now, Andrei Codrescu. Codrescu's vivid fictional account illuminates the interest we still have in this uncompromising and magical libertine, while it imagines how his life would have continued if Casanova's immortality had extended beyond the literary. In Codrescu's retelling of the Casanova legend, readers are introduced to an age far less inhibited than our own, and far more interesting in its vices. At once a libertine, a defender of women, a reactionary, a revolutionary, a brilliant observer, and a visionary, Casanova was a man ahead of his time both in thought and in action. Finally, in this inventive and absorbing work, Casanova is given due credit for his writings, his philosophies, and, of course, for the amorous magic that has been made known to so many.

"Ecstasy: A Study of Happiness," by Louis Couperus, offers a fascinating glimpse into 19th-century Dutch society. This meticulously prepared edition allows readers to explore the social life and customs of the Netherlands through the lens of captivating fiction. Couperus, a master of Dutch literature, delves into the timeless question of happiness, examining its pursuit and elusive nature within a specific historical context. This novel provides a rich tapestry of cultural heritage, transporting the reader to another time and place. Experience the intricacies of Dutch social dynamics in this historical novel, a compelling work of literary fiction. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The ethics of literature, formalists have insisted, resides in the moral quality of a character, a story, perhaps the relation between author and reader. But in the wake of deconstruction and various forms of criticism focusing on difference, the ethical question has been freshly negotiated by literary studies, and to this approach Adam Newton brings a startling new thrust. His book makes a compelling case for understanding narrative as ethics. Assuming an intrinsic and necessary connection between the two, Newton explores the ethical consequences of telling stories and fictionalizing character, and the reciprocal claims binding teller, listener, witness, and reader in the process. He treats these relations as defining properties of prose fiction, of particular import in nineteenth- and twentieth-century texts. Newton's fresh and nuanced readings cover a wide range of authors and periods, from Charles Dickens to Kazuo Ishiguro and Julian Barnes, from Herman Melville to Richard Wright, from Joseph Conrad and Henry James to Sherwood Anderson and Stephen Crane. An original work of theory as well as a deft critical performance, Narrative Ethics also stakes a claim for itself as moral inquiry. To that end, Newton braids together the ethical-philosophical projects of Emmanuel Levinas, Stanley Cavell, and Mikhail Bakhtin as a kind of chorus for his textual analyses--an elegant bridge between philosophy's ear and literary criticism's voice. His work will generate enormous interest among scholars and students of English and American literature, as well as specialists in narrative and literary theory, hermeneutics, and contemporary philosophy.

Bad objects are a contrarian's delight. In this volume, leading French feminist theorist and literary critic Naomi Schor revisits some of feminist theory's most widely discredited objects, essentialism and universalism, with surprising results. Bilingual and bicultural, she reveals the national character of contemporary theories that are usually received as beyond borders, while making a strong argument for feminist theory's specific claims to universalism. Written in a distinctive personal and self-reflective mode, this collection offers new unpublished work and brings together for the first time some of Schor's best-known and most influential essays. These engagements with Anglo-American feminist theory, Freud and psychoanalytic theory, French poststructuralists such as Barthes, Foucault, and Irigaray, and French fiction by or about women--especially of the nineteenth century--also address such issues as bilingual identity, professional controversies, female fetishism, and literature and gender. Schor then concludes with a provocative meditation on the future of feminism. As they read Bad Objects , Anglo-American theoreticians who have been mainly preoccupied with French feminism will find themselves drawn into French literary and cultural history, while French literary critics and historians will be placed in contact with feminist debate.

In 1953, reflecting on early ventures in quantum theory, J. Robert Oppenheimer spoke of terror and exaltation, of history happening in a realm so remote from common experience that it was "unlikely to be known to any poet or historian." Yet now, anyone can Google "quantum theory" and find more than 34 million entries--from poets and historians, certainly, as well as film critics and Buddhist monks. How--and how pervasively--quantum mechanics has entered the general culture is the subject of this book, an engaging, eclectic, and thought-provoking look at the curious, boundlessly fertile intersection of scientific thought and everyday life. Including recollections of encounters with the theory and the people responsible for it, Jeremy Bernstein's account ranges from the cross-pollination of quantum mechanics with Marxist ideology and Christian and Buddhist mysticism to its influence on theater, film, and fiction. Along the way, Bernstein focuses on those--such as Niels Bohr, the Dalai Lama, W. H. Auden, and Tom Stoppard--who have made quantum physics; who have argued over it, pondered it, or taken literary inspiration from it, and who have misunderstood, misconstrued, or misapplied it. One person in particular supplies a narrative thread: John Bell, a notable yet underappreciated physicist who did groundbreaking research in quantum physics. In Bell's story, Bernstein provides a uniquely readable account of what physicists call the "measurement problem." Quantum Leaps is a lively, erudite book on a subject that Bernstein has lived with for most of its history. His experience and deep understanding are apparent on every page.

Love Comes First is Erica Jong's long-awaited return to her poetic roots! Here is Erica Jong's first book of all-new poems in more than a decade. Known and beloved for Fear of Flying and her many other books of fiction, nonfiction and poetry, Jong expounds on the most eternal, universal topic of all: love. Using brilliant imagery and intense metaphorical insights to paint vivid pictures of love, and all that comes with it--the heights of elation, the depths of sorrow--she covers every inch of the spectrum with her vibrant and insightful words. Perfect for wedding showers, lovers of all ages, and Valentine's Day, Jong's trademark trailblazing style and remarkable ability to bridge the gap between literary and popular poetry makes Love Comes First an instant classic. Discover-- or discover yet again--the brilliance of Erica Jong. Watch the trailer for this book:

Is Faith Darwin Asbury really Grace Paley? Or is it coincidental that the personal history, politics, and relationships of the fictional Asbury seem to mirror those of the well-known author? And do other characters in Paley's stories represent individuals she has known, in scenes and entire episodes she has experienced? A writer who translates her life into art not only saves her own life, according to Paley, but offers others the revelation of its meaning. That idea is at the core of Judith Arcana's biographical reading of this strongly autobiographical writer. Grace Paley's Life Stories interweaves details about Paley with critical discussions of her works, examining her as a woman, mother, activist, and Jew. Arcana visited and interviewed Paley at her homes in Vermont and New York over a period of several years. She also interviewed Paley's family, friends, and colleagues. Such extensive research is unmatched in Paley scholarship; Arcana's focus on the political crucible of Paley's consciousness is rare in contemporary literary criticism.