Author: Adrienne Rich, Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 1993 My Rating: 0
Summary: Not merely a wonderful and incredibly courageous poet; oh, no. She is also a brilliant and challenging essayist. Most famous for "The Hermit's Scream", her other prose is absolutely startling in its originality and courage. This book is a threat to white males everywhere. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 1993 My Rating: 0
Summary: Not merely a wonderful and incredibly courageous poet; oh, no. She is also a brilliant and challenging essayist. Most famous for "The Hermit's Scream", her other prose is absolutely startling in its originality and courage. This book is a threat to white males everywhere. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Author: J. Glenn Evans
Publisher: Authorhouse
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 2002 My Rating: 0
Summary: Funny, sexy narrative about a stockbroker whose decisions take him to the brink, but we root for him anyway. Rich in humor, colorful dialogue and memorable characters, it brims with authenticity. The author's seriocomic voice makes it a fun read.
Publisher: Authorhouse
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 2002 My Rating: 0
Summary: Funny, sexy narrative about a stockbroker whose decisions take him to the brink, but we root for him anyway. Rich in humor, colorful dialogue and memorable characters, it brims with authenticity. The author's seriocomic voice makes it a fun read.
Author: John O'hara
Publisher: Modern Library
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Apr 2003 My Rating: 0
Summary: A bestseller upon its publication in 1935, "BUtterfield 8" was inspired by a news account of the discovery of the body of a beautiful young woman washed up on a Long Island beach. Was it an accident, a murder, a suicide? The circumstances of her death were never resolved, but O’Hara seized upon the tragedy to imagine the woman’s down-and-out life in New York City in the early 1930s.
“O’Hara understood better than any other American writer how class can both reveal and shape character,” Fran Lebowitz writes in her Introduction. With brash honesty and a flair for the unconventional, "BUtterfield 8" lays bare the unspoken and often shocking truths that lurked beneath the surface of a society still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression. The result is a masterpiece of American fiction.
Publisher: Modern Library
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Apr 2003 My Rating: 0
Summary: A bestseller upon its publication in 1935, "BUtterfield 8" was inspired by a news account of the discovery of the body of a beautiful young woman washed up on a Long Island beach. Was it an accident, a murder, a suicide? The circumstances of her death were never resolved, but O’Hara seized upon the tragedy to imagine the woman’s down-and-out life in New York City in the early 1930s.
“O’Hara understood better than any other American writer how class can both reveal and shape character,” Fran Lebowitz writes in her Introduction. With brash honesty and a flair for the unconventional, "BUtterfield 8" lays bare the unspoken and often shocking truths that lurked beneath the surface of a society still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression. The result is a masterpiece of American fiction.
Author: Susan Vreeland
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Nov 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: Novelist Susan Vreeland has made a career of fictionalizing the lives of artists and of particular paintings, like Artemisia Gentileschi¹s magnificent "Judith" in "The Passion of Artemisia". In her third novel, "The Forest Lover," Vreeland's subject is the courageous Canadian painter Emily Carr, who traveled through native villages and wilderness of British Columbia in the early 1900s, often alone, on a quest to paint totem poles and other artifacts before the indigenous traditions died out and the poles were destroyed or sold. Vreeland's Carr is deeply respectful of the people she meets, and is rewarded with their trust and their stories. She brings the same sensitivity with her to Paris to see the new art, is exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, and returns to Vancouver in 1912 with a style so direct, and colors so expressive, that a conservative local reviewer dubs her a wild beast, literally, a Fauve. Vreeland's strength is in the tacks of emotion during dialogue, and in her nimble, exact prose. As she depicts her, Carr is an endearing and believable balance of sensitivity and determination‹an artist of life as well as a remarkable painter. "--Regina Marler"
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Nov 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: Novelist Susan Vreeland has made a career of fictionalizing the lives of artists and of particular paintings, like Artemisia Gentileschi¹s magnificent "Judith" in "The Passion of Artemisia". In her third novel, "The Forest Lover," Vreeland's subject is the courageous Canadian painter Emily Carr, who traveled through native villages and wilderness of British Columbia in the early 1900s, often alone, on a quest to paint totem poles and other artifacts before the indigenous traditions died out and the poles were destroyed or sold. Vreeland's Carr is deeply respectful of the people she meets, and is rewarded with their trust and their stories. She brings the same sensitivity with her to Paris to see the new art, is exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, and returns to Vancouver in 1912 with a style so direct, and colors so expressive, that a conservative local reviewer dubs her a wild beast, literally, a Fauve. Vreeland's strength is in the tacks of emotion during dialogue, and in her nimble, exact prose. As she depicts her, Carr is an endearing and believable balance of sensitivity and determination‹an artist of life as well as a remarkable painter. "--Regina Marler"
Author: Walker Percy
Publisher: Avon Books
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 1978 My Rating: 0
Summary: Lancelot Lamar is a disenchanted lawyer who finds himself confined in a mental asylum with memories that don't seem worth remembering. It all began the day he accidentally discovered he was not the father of his youngest daughter, a discovery which sent Lancelot on modern quest to reverse the degeneration of America. Percy's novel reveals a shining knight for the modern age--a knight not of romance, but of revenge.
Publisher: Avon Books
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 1978 My Rating: 0
Summary: Lancelot Lamar is a disenchanted lawyer who finds himself confined in a mental asylum with memories that don't seem worth remembering. It all began the day he accidentally discovered he was not the father of his youngest daughter, a discovery which sent Lancelot on modern quest to reverse the degeneration of America. Percy's novel reveals a shining knight for the modern age--a knight not of romance, but of revenge.
Author: George R. Bozzini, Cynthia A. Leenerts
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jul 2000 My Rating: 0
Summary:
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jul 2000 My Rating: 0
Summary:
Author: Marc Shell
Publisher: NYU Press
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 2000 My Rating: 0
Summary:
"What exactly constitutes American literature? Harvard professors Marc Shell (OVERDUE; ART AND MONEY) and Werner Sollors (THEORIES OF ETHNICITY; BLACKS AT HARVARD; MULTILINGUAL AMERICA) offer a unique and fascinating twist with THE MULTILINGUAL ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: A READER OF ORIGINAL TEXTS WITH ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS. They say that American literature doesn't include only material written in English--it includes a Lenape epic, WALAM OLUM; it includes Omar Ibn Said's African-American narrative in Arabic; it includes Victor Sejour's French story "Le Mutatre." Twenty-nine works are here, in languages ranging from Russian and Yiddish to Welsh and Norwegian, along with English translations, reminding us of America's polyglot roots."--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An 1830s African-American slave narrative written in Arabic. Dafydd Morgan, the only American immigrant novel published in Welsh. The Native American epic, Walum Olum, in the Lenape language. Theodor Adorno's dream transcripts, in German. A short story about the politics of abortion in working-class Chinatown. "Lesbian Love," a surprisingly explicit chapter from an 1853 New Orleans novel. A haunting 1904 ballad, "The Revenge of the Forests," that is one of the first expressions of radical environmentalism in the United States.
Largely ignored in the debates over canon and multiculturalism in America, indigenous American works written in languages other than English have over time disappeared from view.
The first anthology of its kind, The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature brings together American writings in diverse languages from Arabic and Spanish to Swedish and Yiddish, among others. Presenting each work in its original language with facing page translation, the book provides an important complement to all other anthologies of American writing, and will serve to complicate our understanding of what exactly American literature is.
American literature appears here as more than an offshoot of a single mother country, or of many mother countries, but rather as the interaction among diverse linguistic and cultural trajectories.
Consider that Cotton Mather spoke half a dozen languages and wrote in both Spanish and Latin. Or that the first short story known to have been written by an African American (and reproduced here) was written in French. Not only a literature of immigration and assimilation, American multilingual literature participates in the larger literary tradition which too often marginalizes authors who complicate the fit of authorship, citizenship, and language.
Publisher: NYU Press
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 2000 My Rating: 0
Summary:
"What exactly constitutes American literature? Harvard professors Marc Shell (OVERDUE; ART AND MONEY) and Werner Sollors (THEORIES OF ETHNICITY; BLACKS AT HARVARD; MULTILINGUAL AMERICA) offer a unique and fascinating twist with THE MULTILINGUAL ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: A READER OF ORIGINAL TEXTS WITH ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS. They say that American literature doesn't include only material written in English--it includes a Lenape epic, WALAM OLUM; it includes Omar Ibn Said's African-American narrative in Arabic; it includes Victor Sejour's French story "Le Mutatre." Twenty-nine works are here, in languages ranging from Russian and Yiddish to Welsh and Norwegian, along with English translations, reminding us of America's polyglot roots."--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An 1830s African-American slave narrative written in Arabic. Dafydd Morgan, the only American immigrant novel published in Welsh. The Native American epic, Walum Olum, in the Lenape language. Theodor Adorno's dream transcripts, in German. A short story about the politics of abortion in working-class Chinatown. "Lesbian Love," a surprisingly explicit chapter from an 1853 New Orleans novel. A haunting 1904 ballad, "The Revenge of the Forests," that is one of the first expressions of radical environmentalism in the United States.
Largely ignored in the debates over canon and multiculturalism in America, indigenous American works written in languages other than English have over time disappeared from view.
The first anthology of its kind, The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature brings together American writings in diverse languages from Arabic and Spanish to Swedish and Yiddish, among others. Presenting each work in its original language with facing page translation, the book provides an important complement to all other anthologies of American writing, and will serve to complicate our understanding of what exactly American literature is.
American literature appears here as more than an offshoot of a single mother country, or of many mother countries, but rather as the interaction among diverse linguistic and cultural trajectories.
Consider that Cotton Mather spoke half a dozen languages and wrote in both Spanish and Latin. Or that the first short story known to have been written by an African American (and reproduced here) was written in French. Not only a literature of immigration and assimilation, American multilingual literature participates in the larger literary tradition which too often marginalizes authors who complicate the fit of authorship, citizenship, and language.
Author: Sherman Alexie
Publisher: Grove Press
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: Sherman Alexie, a gifted poet and storyteller, plows familiar yet fertile ground in his third collection of short stories, "Ten Little Indians". The book contains nine stories populated by at least one American Indian (usually of Alexie's Spokane heritage, and mostly living in Seattle), but "little" is a bit of a misnomer; the book addresses human (not necessarily Indian), rituals, ceremony, love, loss, insecurity over life choices, and personal sacrifices. A lot of intense basketball is played, too.
When Alexie is at his best, his stories function at a profoundly sad level, where broken down characters are broken down even more, but are fierce-willed enough to attempt Phoenix-like transitions. Unfortunately, the weakest stories appear first, where characters and situations seem far too contrived or forced, the dialogue wooden, and questions or exclamatory sentences appear annoyingly in bunches. In the last half of the book, a married couple, once intensely in love but now lost in life's routines, deal with infidelity ("Do You Know Where I Am?"); a bright basketball prospect attempts a comeback--twenty years after giving up the game ("Whatever Happened to Frank Snake Church?"); and a transient Indian finds his grandmother's regalia in a pawn shop and seeks to quickly raise the lofty purchase price ("What You Pawn I Will Redeem"). Brilliant turns of phrase abound, such as ceremonies being "pitiful cries to a disinterested God," or when a gym rat plays against "Basketball-Democrats who came to the court alone and ran with anybody and Basketball-Republicans who traveled in groups of five and only ran with each other." "Ten Little Indians" is an uneven collection, but contains some significant, memorable stories. "--Michael Ferch"
Publisher: Grove Press
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: Sherman Alexie, a gifted poet and storyteller, plows familiar yet fertile ground in his third collection of short stories, "Ten Little Indians". The book contains nine stories populated by at least one American Indian (usually of Alexie's Spokane heritage, and mostly living in Seattle), but "little" is a bit of a misnomer; the book addresses human (not necessarily Indian), rituals, ceremony, love, loss, insecurity over life choices, and personal sacrifices. A lot of intense basketball is played, too.
When Alexie is at his best, his stories function at a profoundly sad level, where broken down characters are broken down even more, but are fierce-willed enough to attempt Phoenix-like transitions. Unfortunately, the weakest stories appear first, where characters and situations seem far too contrived or forced, the dialogue wooden, and questions or exclamatory sentences appear annoyingly in bunches. In the last half of the book, a married couple, once intensely in love but now lost in life's routines, deal with infidelity ("Do You Know Where I Am?"); a bright basketball prospect attempts a comeback--twenty years after giving up the game ("Whatever Happened to Frank Snake Church?"); and a transient Indian finds his grandmother's regalia in a pawn shop and seeks to quickly raise the lofty purchase price ("What You Pawn I Will Redeem"). Brilliant turns of phrase abound, such as ceremonies being "pitiful cries to a disinterested God," or when a gym rat plays against "Basketball-Democrats who came to the court alone and ran with anybody and Basketball-Republicans who traveled in groups of five and only ran with each other." "Ten Little Indians" is an uneven collection, but contains some significant, memorable stories. "--Michael Ferch"
Author: V.S. Naipaul
Publisher: Vintage
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Sep 2003 My Rating: 0
Summary: V.S. Naipaul is a creature of paradox. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his essay collection, "The Writer and the World". These essays, selected and introduced by Pankaj Mishra, range from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s. In them, our man travels the world, from his native Trinidad to his ancestral India to America and beyond, always looking with clear eyes at what's right there in front of him. In doing so, he's given us a distinctly Naipaulean journalism: he writes about countries as though they were people. "The politics of a country," he says, "can only be an extension of its idea of human relationships." His writing is, as a result, simultaneously petty and grand. Here, he writes of Belize City: In the late afternoons Negroes in jackets and ties--famous throughout Central America for their immunity to disease--walk behind the hearses to the cemetery just outside the town, waving white handkerchiefs... It is like a ceremony of bewildered farewell at the limit of the world. But they are only keeping off the mosquitoes and sand flies. Here is a writer who turns the specific to the universal, seemingly without effort. If Naipaul has a reputation as a grouch, it's only because he never lets go of the specific in favor of the universal. The two always coexist. The pieces contained here--mostly heretofore out of print--are short in length, catholic in interest, and in all a fine introduction to our most cosmopolitan postcolonial writer. "--Claire Dederer"
Publisher: Vintage
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Sep 2003 My Rating: 0
Summary: V.S. Naipaul is a creature of paradox. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his essay collection, "The Writer and the World". These essays, selected and introduced by Pankaj Mishra, range from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s. In them, our man travels the world, from his native Trinidad to his ancestral India to America and beyond, always looking with clear eyes at what's right there in front of him. In doing so, he's given us a distinctly Naipaulean journalism: he writes about countries as though they were people. "The politics of a country," he says, "can only be an extension of its idea of human relationships." His writing is, as a result, simultaneously petty and grand. Here, he writes of Belize City: In the late afternoons Negroes in jackets and ties--famous throughout Central America for their immunity to disease--walk behind the hearses to the cemetery just outside the town, waving white handkerchiefs... It is like a ceremony of bewildered farewell at the limit of the world. But they are only keeping off the mosquitoes and sand flies. Here is a writer who turns the specific to the universal, seemingly without effort. If Naipaul has a reputation as a grouch, it's only because he never lets go of the specific in favor of the universal. The two always coexist. The pieces contained here--mostly heretofore out of print--are short in length, catholic in interest, and in all a fine introduction to our most cosmopolitan postcolonial writer. "--Claire Dederer"
Author: Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Mar 1986 My Rating: 4
Summary: Even more popular in their day than Don Quixote, Cervantes's Exemplary Stories (1613) surprise, challenge and delight. Ranging from the picaresque to the satirical, Cervantes's Exemplary Stories defy the conventions of heroic chivalric literature through a combination of comic irony, moral ambiguity, realism, and sheer mirth. With acute narrative skill and deft characterisation, drawing on colloquial language and farce, Cervantes creates a tension between the everyday and the literary, the plausible and the improbable. While encouraging us to reach our own moral conclusions, he also persuades us to accept the coincidental and the incredible: two boys indulge their life of crime at a time of public prayer; a young nobleman undergoes a change of identity at the behest of not a princess but a mere gipsy girl, and, most fantastically, talking dogs philosophize in a ward full of syphilitics. By placing the extraordinary within the contexts of the ordinary, the Exemplary Stories chart new novelistic territory and demonstrate Cervantes at his most imaginative and innovative. This new translation captures the full vigour of Cervantes's wit and makes available two rarely printed tales, `The Illustrious Kitchen Maid' and `The Power of Blood'.
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Mar 1986 My Rating: 4
Summary: Even more popular in their day than Don Quixote, Cervantes's Exemplary Stories (1613) surprise, challenge and delight. Ranging from the picaresque to the satirical, Cervantes's Exemplary Stories defy the conventions of heroic chivalric literature through a combination of comic irony, moral ambiguity, realism, and sheer mirth. With acute narrative skill and deft characterisation, drawing on colloquial language and farce, Cervantes creates a tension between the everyday and the literary, the plausible and the improbable. While encouraging us to reach our own moral conclusions, he also persuades us to accept the coincidental and the incredible: two boys indulge their life of crime at a time of public prayer; a young nobleman undergoes a change of identity at the behest of not a princess but a mere gipsy girl, and, most fantastically, talking dogs philosophize in a ward full of syphilitics. By placing the extraordinary within the contexts of the ordinary, the Exemplary Stories chart new novelistic territory and demonstrate Cervantes at his most imaginative and innovative. This new translation captures the full vigour of Cervantes's wit and makes available two rarely printed tales, `The Illustrious Kitchen Maid' and `The Power of Blood'.
Author: John Steinbeck
Publisher: Penguin
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 1992 My Rating: 5
Summary: The masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is the powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is both family saga and a modern retelling of the book of Genesis.
Publisher: Penguin
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 1992 My Rating: 5
Summary: The masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is the powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is both family saga and a modern retelling of the book of Genesis.
Author: Charles Elliott
Publisher: The Lyons Press
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Nov 2001 My Rating: 5
Summary: They can be fascinating or frustrating, frolicsome or frosty, but judging from the amount of thought humans have devoted to figuring out what goes on in their furry little heads, it's no wonder cats have become America's favorite pets. They have also long been the favorite pets of some of our greatest writers—Mark Twain, Dorothy L. Sayers, Rudyard Kipling, Emile Zola, P. G. Wodehouse, Edgar Allen Poe, and many others. In THE GREATEST CAT STORIES EVER TOLD you will find stories that range from the esoteric to the homely, from familiar yarns to tales that will come as a surprise, with feline protagonists as diverse as Rhubarb, the bad-tempered yellow tom who inherits a big-league baseball team; Lily, the seductive tortoiseshell who can wrap her owner around her little paw; George Eliot, the silver tabby who may be a bit of a hypochondriac; Calvin, the fastidious Maltese who was so well-loved and well-lamented; and Ming, the possessive Siamese who develops a taste for blood; along with many other cats—every one of them a unique individual. This collection is a testament to the amazing variation of feline personalities—a rich treasury filled with tales of memorable cats that will make a perfect gift for even the most finicky cat lover. Each story in this volume has been selected not only for its intrinsic literary value but also for its ability to convey that special something—that mysterious allure of the cat.
Publisher: The Lyons Press
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Nov 2001 My Rating: 5
Summary: They can be fascinating or frustrating, frolicsome or frosty, but judging from the amount of thought humans have devoted to figuring out what goes on in their furry little heads, it's no wonder cats have become America's favorite pets. They have also long been the favorite pets of some of our greatest writers—Mark Twain, Dorothy L. Sayers, Rudyard Kipling, Emile Zola, P. G. Wodehouse, Edgar Allen Poe, and many others. In THE GREATEST CAT STORIES EVER TOLD you will find stories that range from the esoteric to the homely, from familiar yarns to tales that will come as a surprise, with feline protagonists as diverse as Rhubarb, the bad-tempered yellow tom who inherits a big-league baseball team; Lily, the seductive tortoiseshell who can wrap her owner around her little paw; George Eliot, the silver tabby who may be a bit of a hypochondriac; Calvin, the fastidious Maltese who was so well-loved and well-lamented; and Ming, the possessive Siamese who develops a taste for blood; along with many other cats—every one of them a unique individual. This collection is a testament to the amazing variation of feline personalities—a rich treasury filled with tales of memorable cats that will make a perfect gift for even the most finicky cat lover. Each story in this volume has been selected not only for its intrinsic literary value but also for its ability to convey that special something—that mysterious allure of the cat.
Author: Claudia Mauro
Publisher: Whit Press
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 2003 My Rating: 5
Summary: A feast of poetry and stories uniting many of the world's most eloquent voices in honor of the people, places, and labor of our fertile lands.
Lucille Clifton, Wendell Berry, Emily Dickinson, Joy Harjo, Langston Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Ebone Jones, Maxine Kumin, Denise Levertov, Li Young Lee, Pablo Neruda, Naomi Shihab Nye, Marge Piercy, Ntozake Shange and many more.
Publisher: Whit Press
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 2003 My Rating: 5
Summary: A feast of poetry and stories uniting many of the world's most eloquent voices in honor of the people, places, and labor of our fertile lands.
Lucille Clifton, Wendell Berry, Emily Dickinson, Joy Harjo, Langston Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Ebone Jones, Maxine Kumin, Denise Levertov, Li Young Lee, Pablo Neruda, Naomi Shihab Nye, Marge Piercy, Ntozake Shange and many more.
Author: Shirley Jackson
Publisher: Bantam
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Dec 1996 My Rating: 5
Summary: The late Shirley Jackson (1919-65) is the author of the classic short story, "The Lottery," a dark, unforgettable tale of the unthinking and murderous customs of a small New England town. She is also the author of several American Gothic novels, such as "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" and "The Haunting of Hill House." Her atmospheric stories explore themes of psychological turmoil, isolation, and the inequity of fate. "Just an Ordinary Day" is a posthumous collection of 54 short stories (many of which have never been published), edited and introduced by two of Jackson's children. Jackson penned many of the stories in this volume for the popular press, for titles ranging from "Fantasy and Science Fiction" and "The New Yorker" to women's magazines such as "Charm" and "Good Housekeeping". The disparity of the intended audience and the divergent styles result in an uneven collection of short stories, some that are outstanding and will be much appreciated by the reading public, others that hold interest only to the die-hard fan or chronicler of Jackson's work.
Publisher: Bantam
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Dec 1996 My Rating: 5
Summary: The late Shirley Jackson (1919-65) is the author of the classic short story, "The Lottery," a dark, unforgettable tale of the unthinking and murderous customs of a small New England town. She is also the author of several American Gothic novels, such as "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" and "The Haunting of Hill House." Her atmospheric stories explore themes of psychological turmoil, isolation, and the inequity of fate. "Just an Ordinary Day" is a posthumous collection of 54 short stories (many of which have never been published), edited and introduced by two of Jackson's children. Jackson penned many of the stories in this volume for the popular press, for titles ranging from "Fantasy and Science Fiction" and "The New Yorker" to women's magazines such as "Charm" and "Good Housekeeping". The disparity of the intended audience and the divergent styles result in an uneven collection of short stories, some that are outstanding and will be much appreciated by the reading public, others that hold interest only to the die-hard fan or chronicler of Jackson's work.
Author: Orson Scott Card
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 1998 My Rating: 5
Summary: Card does a superb job making an exciting an provacative telling of probably the greatest Bible tale ever told! With interesting ideas about the "Egyptian" Moses and his "Egyptian" mother who literally became both his mother and father (this is explained in the story) and her struggle to keep the Pharoahship from the evil Tuthmose and his equally evil family.
Card provides a vivid narration of what happened to Moses during the time he was in exile in the desert and when he obtained his real education. We are presented with an "unsure" and self-doubting Moses that relies on the Lord to allow him to do the right thing and say the right things. We have a compassionate Moses who wants to see Pharoah punished but grieves for the innocent Egyptians that he causes ruin and death to.
This is a much deeper and more realistic telling of the tale than what Cecil B. DeMille portrayed in his Ten Commandments film. There is no glitz and glitter here, just the magnificient tale is presented with a lot of lessons to be learned and good advice for anyone to lead a better life.
A must read!
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Release: Jan 1998 My Rating: 5
Summary: Card does a superb job making an exciting an provacative telling of probably the greatest Bible tale ever told! With interesting ideas about the "Egyptian" Moses and his "Egyptian" mother who literally became both his mother and father (this is explained in the story) and her struggle to keep the Pharoahship from the evil Tuthmose and his equally evil family.
Card provides a vivid narration of what happened to Moses during the time he was in exile in the desert and when he obtained his real education. We are presented with an "unsure" and self-doubting Moses that relies on the Lord to allow him to do the right thing and say the right things. We have a compassionate Moses who wants to see Pharoah punished but grieves for the innocent Egyptians that he causes ruin and death to.
This is a much deeper and more realistic telling of the tale than what Cecil B. DeMille portrayed in his Ten Commandments film. There is no glitz and glitter here, just the magnificient tale is presented with a lot of lessons to be learned and good advice for anyone to lead a better life.
A must read!