In Romantic Longings Steven Seidman offers an original perspective on the origins and current meaning of the American intimate culture. Drawing on a wide range of sources--sex surveys, advice literature, autobiographies, novels--he charts a change from a Victorian spiritual ideal to efforts by current reformers to sexualize love. Stressing that contemporary notions of intimacy are grounded in twentieth-century historical developments, he observes the birth of a culture of eroticism in the post-World War II years--a culture where sexuality is conceived as both a sphere of love and intimacy and a domain of pleasure and self-expression.

But love among the skyscrapers is a risky proposition. As the great birds of prey - one male, known as Pale Male because of his colouring, and two successive females, First Love and Chocolate - prepared for parenthood, the loyal watchers grew apprehensive ... with good reason, it turned out. The unfolding drama, chronicled by Marie Winn in this enchanting book, was to take some unexpected twists, developing into a magical tale of disappearance and mistaken identity. In telling it, the author draws us spellbound into the adventures not only of the hawks, but also of the park's other wildlife residents - water birds, owls, raccoons, orioles, woodpeckers - and of the birdwatchers, whom we come to know as the Regulars. In a tale as bewitching as Alice's, Central Park is the wonderland; its inhabitants, both human and avian, are the compelling cast of characters in this most charming story of romance, exhilaration, despair and obsession.

“Stern’s unadorned craftsmanship has few rivals in American letters.”— Philadelphia Inquirer Early Collected Poems gathers the poems from the first six books of Gerald Stern’s body of work. A master poet, Stern has sought new language for the overlooked, neglected, and unseen facets of human experience. Whether writing about modern poets, Hebrew prophets, death, war, or love, “Stern’s literary songs are sharp, surprising, and unerring in their delivery” ( Ploughshares , Editor’s Choice). from “The Red Coal” The coal has taken over, the red coal is burning between us and we are at its mercy— as if a power is finally dominating the two of us; as if we’re huddled up watching the black smoke and the ashes; as if knowledge is what we needed and now we have that knowledge. Now we have that knowledge.