Catalog Search Results
Author
Language
English
Description
A collection of both previously unpublished works and classic essays includes discussions of recent cultural and political events, social networking, libraries, and the failure to address global warming
"Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel, White Teeth, almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also as a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes...
Author
Publisher
Tor
Pub. Date
[2014]
Language
English
Description
"As any reader of Jo Walton's Among Others might guess, Walton is both an inveterate reader of SF and fantasy, and a chronic re-reader of books. In 2008, then-new science-fiction mega-site Tor.com asked Walton to blog regularly about her re-reading--about all kinds of older fantasy and SF, ranging from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. These posts have consistently been among the most popular features of Tor.com....
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
What is poetry? If music is sound organized in a particular way, poetry is a way of organizing language. It is language made special so that it will be remembered and valued. It does not always work--over the centuries countless thousands of poems have been forgotten. This little history is about some that have not. John Carey tells the stories behind the world's greatest poems, from the oldest surviving one written nearly four thousand years ago...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Presents a history of humor, from fart jokes on clay Sumerian tablets all the way up to the latest Twitter memes, that tells the story of how comedy came to rule the modern world
"For millennia of human history, the future belonged to the strong. To the parent who could kill the most animals with sticks and to the child who could survive the winter or the epidemic. When the Industrial Revolution came, masters of business efficiency prospered instead,...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
ArtQuake' tells the stories of 50 pivotal works that shook the world, telling the fascinating stories behind their creation, reception and legacy. Causing fascination and intrigue in some, repulse and scorn in others, these cutting-edge totems celebrated novelty and innovation and defined twentieth-century art. From Gustave Courbet's The Bathers (1853) to Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917); Yves Klein's Anthropology Performance (1960) to Judy Chicago's...
7) Manuel Puig
Author
Series
Publisher
Twayne Publishers
Pub. Date
1993.
Language
English
Description
Provides in-depth analysis of the life, works, career, and critical importance of Manuel Puig.
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Praised as "suave, soulful, ebullient" (Tom Waits), Elijah Wald is one of the leading popular music critics of his generation. In The Blues, Wald surveys a genre at the heart of American culture.
It has been defined by lyrical structure, or as a progression of chords, or as a set of practices reflecting West African "tonal and rhythmic approaches," using a five-note "blues scale." He traces its roots in work and praise songs, and shows how it was...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Music composed for television had, until recently, never been taken seriously by scholars or critics. Catchy TV themes, often for popular weekly series, were fondly remembered but not considered much more culturally significant than commercial jingles. Yet noted composers like John Williams, Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith and Lalo Schifrin learned and/or honed their craft in television before going on to major success in feature films. Oscar-winning...
Author
Publisher
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub. Date
2023
Language
English
Description
"Comedy is king. From multimillion-dollar TV specials to sold-out stand-up shows and TikTok stardom, comedy has never been more popular, democratized, or influential. Comedians have become organizing forces across culture--as trusted as politicians and as fawned-over as celebrities--yet comedy as an art form has gone under-considered throughout its history, even as it has ascended as a cultural force. In Comedy Book, Jesse David Fox--the country's...
Series
Publisher
DK Publishing
Pub. Date
2016
Language
English
Description
Examines "the greatest works of world literature, from the Iliad to Don Quixote to The Great Gatsby. Around 100 ... articles explore landmark novels, short stories, plays, and poetry that reinvented the art of writing in their time, whether Ancient Greece, post-classical Europe, or modern-day Korea"--Amazon.com
12) Jazz
Author
Publisher
W.W. Norton & Co
Pub. Date
c2009
Language
English
Description
History of jazz that explains what jazz is, where it came from, and who created it and why, all within the broader context of American life and culture. Emphasizing its African American roots, Jazz traces the history of the music over the last hundred years. From ragtime and blues to the international craze for swing, from the heated protests of the avant-garde to the radical diversity of today's artists, Jazz describes the travails and triumphs of...
Author
Publisher
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Pub. Date
2014
Language
English
Description
The 700-year history of the novel in English defies straightforward telling. Geographically and culturally diverse, with contributions from Great Britain, Ireland, America, Canada, Australia, India, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa, influenced by great novelists working in other languages, and encompassing a range of genres, the story of the novel in English unfolds like a richly varied landscape that invites exploration rather than a linear journey....
Author
Publisher
Yale University Press
Pub. Date
[2013]
Language
English
Description
From The Epic of Gilgamesh to Harry Potter, this rollicking romp through the world of literature reveals how writings from all over the world can transport us and help us to make sense of what it means to be human
This "little history" takes on a very big subject: the glorious span of literature from Greek myth to graphic novels, from 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' to 'Harry Potter.' John Sutherland is perfectly suited to the task. He has researched, taught,...
Author
Publisher
Princeton University Press
Pub. Date
[2013]
Language
English
Description
This is a boldly original history of the novel from ancient Greece to the vibrant world of contemporary fiction. Thomas Pavel argues that the driving force behind the novel's evolution has been a rivalry between stories that idealize human behavior and those that ridicule and condemn it. Impelled by this conflict, the novel moved from depicting strong souls to sensitive hearts and, finally, to enigmatic psyches. Pavel makes his case by analyzing more...
Author
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Pub. Date
2011
Language
English
Description
"Beginning its life as the sensational entertainment of the eighteenth century, the novel has become the major literary genre of modern times. Drawing on hundreds of examples of famous novels from all over the world, Marina MacKay explores the essential aspects of the novel and its history: where novels came from and why we read them; how we think about their styles and techniques, their people, plots, places, and politics. Between the main chapters...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Classics, according to Italo Calvino, are not only works of enduring cultural value, but also something much more personal: talismans, touchstones, books through which we understand our world and ourselves. In Why Read the Classics?, Calvino shares over thirty of his classics in essays of warmth, humor, and striking insight. He ranges from Homer to Jorge Luis Borges, from the Persian folklorist Nezami to Charles Dickens. Whether tracing the links...
19) Why poetry
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
An impassioned call for a return to reading poetry and an incisive argument for poetry's accessibility to all readers, by critically acclaimed poet Matthew Zapruder
In Why Poetry, award-winning poet Matthew Zapruder takes on what it is that poetry-and poetry alone-can do. Zapruder argues that the way we have been taught to read poetry is the very thing that prevents us from enjoying it. In lively, lilting prose, he shows us how that misunderstanding...
Publisher
HarperOne
Pub. Date
c 2011
Language
English
Description
"In the Christian life, spiritual formation is hugely influenced by devotional reading. Whether its Augustine's Confessions or C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, books greatly shape your beliefs and actions. Renovare has long been a proponent of the importance of being well-versed in the spiritual classics. Now they have polled leaders and thinkers in the field to present the twenty five books every Christian must read. These are the books that should...
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