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Secondary Heroines in Nineteenth-Century British and American Novels
by Jennifer CamdenTaking up works by Samuel Richardson, James Fenimore Cooper, Sir Walter Scott, and Catharine Maria Sedgwick, among others, Jennifer B. Camden examines the role of female characters who, while embodying the qualities associated with heroines, fail to achieve this status in the story. These "secondary heroines," often the friend or sister of the primary heroine, typically disappear from the action of the novel as the courtship plot progresses, only to return near the conclusion of the action with renewed demands on the reader's attention. Accounting for this persistent pattern, Camden suggests, reveals the cultural work performed by these unusual figures in the early history of the novel. Because she is often a far more vivid character than the heroine of the marriage plot, the secondary heroine inevitably engages the reader's interest in her plight. That the narrative apparently seeks to suppress her creates tension and points to the secondary heroine as a site of contested identity who represents an ideology of womanhood and nationhood at odds with the national ideals represented by the primary heroine, whom the reader is asked to embrace. In showing how the anxiety produced by these ideals is displaced onto the secondary heroine, Camden's study represents an important intervention into the ways in which early novels use character to further ideologies of race, class, sex, and gender.
Secondary Research Methods in the Built Environment
by Emmanuel ManuThe use of secondary data for research can offer benefits, particularly when limited resources are available for conducting research using primary methods. Researchers and students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including their academic instructors, are increasingly recognising the immense opportunities in applying secondary research methods in built environment research. Advances in technology has also led to vast amounts of existing datasets that can be utilized for secondary research. This textbook provides a systematic guide on how to apply secondary research methods in the built environment, including their various underpinning methodologies. It provides guidance on the secondary research process, benefits, and drawbacks of applying secondary research methods, how to source for secondary data, ethical considerations, and the various secondary research methods that can be applied in built environment research. The book incorporates chapters dealing with qualitative secondary analysis, systematic literature reviews, legal analysis, bibliometric and scientometric analysis, literature-based discovery, and meta-analysis. Secondary Research Methods in the Built Environment is an ideal research book for undergraduate and postgraduate students in construction management, construction project management, quantity surveying, construction law and dispute resolution, real estate and property management, building services engineering, architecture, and civil engineering.
Secondary School English Education in Asia: From policy to practice (Routledge Critical Studies in Asian Education)
by Bernard Spolsky Kiwan SungContinuing on from the previously published Primary School English-Language Education in Asia: From Policy to Practice (Moon & Spolsky, 2012), this book compiles the proceedings which took place at the 2011 annual conference of AsiaTEFL which took place in Seoul, Korea. It surveys the current status, practices, challenges, and future directions of Secondary English education in 11 diverse countries - in Israel, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Vietnam and China. Given the importance of secondary English education as the central feature for continuing development of target language and culture in English language teaching in Asia, each contributed chapter includes key policies, theories, and practices related to the development and implementation of country-specific curricular and instructional programs in secondary English educational contexts in these countries. Secondary School English Education in Asia: From Policy to Practice critically analyses both sides of the English language debate – from advantages to complications – in its chapters including: Educating for the 21st Century: The Singapore Experience Miles to Go …: Secondary Level English Language Education in India English Language Education Innovation for the Vietnamese Secondary School: The Project 2020 Exploring the Value of ELT as a Secondary School Subject in China: A Multi-goal Model for English Curriculum Secondary School English Education in Asia will appeal to English Language Teaching (ELT) researchers, teacher educators, trainee teachers and teachers, primarily those teaching in Asia.
Secondary School Literacy Instruction
by Paul Burns Nancy Kolodziej Betty Roe Barbara Stoodt-HillWell known for its detailed and practical explanations of reading, writing, and study strategies, SECONDARY SCHOOL LITERACY INSTRUCTION is required reading for all non-literacy teaching majors. Its motivational pedagogy especially appeals to pre-service teachers, who quickly realize that the text will help them improve their students' progress. Two hallmark chapters on content area teaching have brought this text wide acclaim for its unique application of literacy and study skills in all secondary subject areas. The text also is recognized for its proven pedagogy, including ""Meeting the Challenge,"" which puts ideas into classroom practice, and ""Focus on English Language Learners"" and ""Focus on Struggling Readers,"" which highlight important applications for these special needs learners in easy-to-locate sections in each chapter.
Secrecy and Disclosure in Victorian Fiction (Among the Victorians and Modernists)
by Leila Silvana MayWhy were the Victorians more fascinated with secrecy than people of other periods? What is the function of secrets in Victorian fiction and in the society depicted, how does it differ from that of other periods, and how did readers of Victorian fiction respond to the secrecy they encountered? These are some of the questions Leila May poses in her study of the dynamics of secrecy and disclosure in fiction from Queen Victoria's coronation to the century's end. May argues that the works of writers such as Charlotte Brontë, William Makepeace Thackeray, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and Arthur Conan Doyle reflect a distinctly Victorian obsession with the veiling and unveiling of information. She argues that there are two opposing vectors in Victorian culture concerning secrecy and subjectivity, one presupposing a form of radical Cartesian selfhood always remaining a secret to other selves and another showing that nothing can be hidden from the trained eye. (May calls the relation between these clashing tendencies the "dialectics" of secrecy and disclosure.) May's theories of secrecy and disclosure are informed by the work of twentieth-century social scientists. She emphasizes Georg Simmel's thesis that sociality and subjectivity are impossible without secrecy and Erving Goffman's claim that sociality can be understood in terms of performativity, "the presentation of the self in everyday life," and his revelation that performance always involves disguise, hence secrecy. May's study offers convincing evidence that secrecy and duplicity, in contrast to the Victorian period's emphasis on honesty and earnestness, emerged in response to the social pressures of class, gender, monarchy, and empire, and were key factors in producing both the subjectivity and the sociality that we now recognize as Victorian.
Secrecy and Esoteric Writing in Kabbalistic Literature (Jewish Culture and Contexts)
by Jonathan DauberSecrecy and Esoteric Writing in Kabbalistic Literature examines the strategies of esoteric writing that Kabbalists have used to conceal secrets in their writings, such that casual readers will only understand the surface meaning of their texts while those with greater insight will grasp the internal meaning. In addition to a broad description of esoteric writing throughout the long literary history of Kabbalah, this work analyzes kabbalistic secrecy in light of contemporary theories of secrecy. It also presents case studies of esoteric writing in the work of four of the first kabbalistic authors—Abraham ben David, Isaac the Blind, Ezra ben Solomon, and Asher ben David—and thereby helps recast our understanding of the earliest stages of kabbalistic literary history.The book will interest scholars in Jewish mysticism and Jewish philosophy, as well as those working in medieval Jewish history. Throughout, Jonathan V. Dauber has endeavored to write an accessible work that does not require extensive prior knowledge of kabbalistic thought. Accordingly, it finds points of contact between scholars of various religious traditions.
Secrecy and Sapphic Modernism
by Sashi NairNovels by significant Modernist authors can be described as romans à clef , providing insight into restrictions governing the representation of female homosexuality in the early twentieth century. Nair argues that key novels of the period represented same-sex desire through the encryption of personal references directed towards coterie audiences.
Secrecy in Public Relations, Mediation and News Cultures: The Shadow World of the Media Sphere (Routledge Focus on Media and Cultural Studies)
by Anne M. CroninThis book investigates the relationship of secrecy as a social practice to contemporary media, news cultures and public relations. Drawing on Georg Simmel’s theorisation of how secrecy produces a ‘second world’ alongside the ‘obvious world’ and creates and reshapes social relations, Anne Cronin argues for close analysis of the PR industry as a powerful vector of secrecy and an examination of its relationship to news cultures. Using case studies and in-depth interviews, as well as recent research in media and cultural studies, sociology, journalism studies and communication studies, the book analyses how PR practices generate a second, shadow world of the media sphere which has a profound impact on the ‘obvious world’. It interrogates both the PR industry’s and news culture’s role in shaping social relations for a digital media landscape, and those initiatives promoting transparency of data and decision-making processes. An insightful, interdisciplinary approach to debates on media and power, this book will appeal to students of public relations, sociology, media studies, cultural studies and communication studies. It will also be of interest to scholars and practitioners working at the intersections of media, social relations and public trust.
Secret Histories: Reading Twentieth-Century American Literature
by David WyattSecret Histories claims that the history of the nation is hidden—in plain sight—within the pages of twentieth-century American literature. David Wyatt argues that the nation's fiction and nonfiction expose a "secret history" that cuts beneath the "straight histories" of our official accounts. And it does so by revealing personal stories of love, work, family, war, and interracial romance as they were lived out across the decades of the twentieth century. Wyatt reads authors both familiar and neglected, examining "double consciousness" in the post–Civil War era through works by Charles W. Chesnutt, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington. He reveals aspects of the Depression in the fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Anzia Yezierska, and John Steinbeck. Period by period, Wyatt's nuanced readings recover the felt sense of life as it was lived, opening surprising dimensions of the critical issues of a given time. The rise of the women's movement, for example, is revivified in new appraisals of works by Eudora Welty, Ann Petry, and Mary McCarthy.Running through the examination of individual works and times is Wyatt's argument about reading itself. Reading is not a passive activity but an empathetic act of cocreation, what Faulkner calls "overpassing to love." Empathetic reading recognizes and relives the emotional, cultural, and political dimensions of an individual and collective past. And discovering a usable American past, as Wyatt shows, enables us to confront the urgencies of our present moment.
The Secret History
by ProcopiusA trusted member of the Byzantine establishment, Procopius was the Empire's official chronicler, and his History of the Wars of Justinian proclaimed the strength and wisdom of the Emperor's reign. Yet all the while the dutiful scribe was working on a very different - and dangerous - history to be published only once its author was safely in his grave. The Secret History portrays the 'great lawgiver' Justinian as a rampant king of corruption and tyranny, the Empress Theodora as a sorceress and whore, and the brilliant general Belisarius as the pliable dupe of his scheming wife Antonina. Magnificently hyperbolic and highly opinionated, The Secret History is a work of explosive energy, depicting holy Byzantium as a hell of murder and misrule.
The Secret History in Literature, 1660–1820
by Rebecca Bullard Rachel CarnellSecret history, with its claim to expose secrets of state and the sexual intrigues of monarchs and ministers, alarmed and thrilled readers across Europe and America from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Scholars have recognised for some time the important position that the genre occupies within the literary and political culture of the Enlightenment. Of interest to students of British, French and American literature, as well as political and intellectual history, this new volume of essays demonstrates for the first time the extent of secret history's interaction with different literary traditions, including epic poetry, Restoration drama, periodicals, and slave narratives. It reveals secret history's impact on authors, readers, and the book trade in England, France, and America throughout the long eighteenth century. In doing so, it offers a case study for approaching questions of genre at moments when political and cultural shifts put strain on traditional generic categories.
The Secret History of Balls
by Josh ChetwyndYou may fancy yourself a sports fan, but chances are you don't know: A fish eyeball was used as the center of some nineteenth-century baseballs The race to make better billiard balls led to the invention of plastics The Nerf ball was originally created to be part of a board game featuring cavemen Balls are the unsung heroes of sports. They are smacked, flung, dribbled, crushed, thrown, and kicked. They're usually only the subject of scrutiny when something goes wrong: a tear, the application of an illegal foreign substance, or a dent from overuse. Nevertheless, if you're watching nearly any major sporting event from around the world, you're likely following the ball wondering where it will go next. . . The Secret History of Balls mines the stories and lore of sports and recreation to offer insight into 60 balls-whether they're hollow, solid, full of air, or stuffed with twine or made of leather, metal, rubber, plastic, or polyurethane-that give us joy on playing fields and in every arena from backyards to stadiums around the globe. .
The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge
by Michael McKeonWinner, Association of American Publishers’ Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards in Communication and Cultural StudiesTaking English culture as its representative sample, The Secret History of Domesticity asks how the modern notion of the public-private relation emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Treating that relation as a crucial instance of the modern division of knowledge, Michael McKeon narrates its pre-history along with that of its essential component, domesticity.This narrative draws upon the entire spectrum of English people's experience. At the most "public" extreme are political developments like the formation of civil society over against the state, the rise of contractual thinking, and the devolution of absolutism from monarch to individual subject. The middle range of experience takes in the influence of Protestant and scientific thought, the printed publication of the private, the conceptualization of virtual publics—society, public opinion, the market—and the capitalization of production, the decline of the domestic economy, and the increase in the sexual division of labor. The most "private" pole of experience involves the privatization of marriage, the family, and the household, and the complex entanglement of femininity, interiority, subjectivity, and sexuality.McKeon accounts for how the relationship between public and private experience first became intelligible as a variable interaction of distinct modes of being—not a static dichotomy, but a tool to think with. Richly illustrated with nearly 100 images, including paintings, engravings, woodcuts, and a representative selection of architectural floor plans for domestic interiors, this volume reads graphic forms to emphasize how susceptible the public-private relation was to concrete and spatial representation. McKeon is similarly attentive to how literary forms evoked a tangible sense of public-private relations—among them figurative imagery, allegorical narration, parody, the author-character-reader dialectic, aesthetic distance, and free indirect discourse. He also finds a structural analogue for the emergence of the modern public-private relation in the conjunction of what contemporaries called the "secret history" and the domestic novel.A capacious and synthetic historical investigation, The Secret History of Domesticity exemplifies how the methods of literary interpretation and historical analysis can inform and enrich one another.
The Secret History of Jane Eyre: How Charlotte Brontë Wrote Her Masterpiece
by John PfordresherThe surprising hidden history behind Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Why did Charlotte Brontë go to such great lengths on the publication of her acclaimed, best-selling novel, Jane Eyre, to conceal its authorship from her family, close friends, and the press? In The Secret History of Jane Eyre, John Pfordresher tells the enthralling story of Brontë’s compulsion to write her masterpiece and why she then turned around and vehemently disavowed it. Few people know how quickly Brontë composed Jane Eyre. Nor do many know that she wrote it during a devastating and anxious period in her life. Thwarted in her passionate, secret, and forbidden love for a married man, she found herself living in a home suddenly imperiled by the fact that her father, a minister, the sole support of the family, was on the brink of blindness. After his hasty operation, as she nursed him in an isolated apartment kept dark to help him heal his eyes, Brontë began writing Jane Eyre, an invigorating romance that, despite her own fears and sorrows, gives voice to a powerfully rebellious and ultimately optimistic woman’s spirit. The Secret History of Jane Eyre expands our understanding of both Jane Eyre and the inner life of its notoriously private author. Pfordresher connects the people Brontë knew and the events she lived to the characters and story in the novel, and he explores how her fecund imagination used her inner life to shape one of the world’s most popular novels. By aligning his insights into Brontë’s life with the timeless characters, harrowing plot, and forbidden romance of Jane Eyre, Pfordresher reveals the remarkable parallels between one of literature’s most beloved heroines and her passionate creator, and arrives at a new understanding of Brontë’s brilliant, immersive genius.
The Secret History of Wonder Woman
by Jill LeporeA riveting work of historical detection revealing that the origin of one of the world's most iconic superheroes hides within it a fascinating family story--and a crucial history of twentieth-century feminismWonder Woman, created in 1941, is the most popular female superhero of all time. Aside from Superman and Batman, no superhero has lasted as long or commanded so vast and wildly passionate a following. Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she has also has a secret history.Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore has uncovered an astonishing trove of documents, including the never-before-seen private papers of William Moulton Marston, Wonder Woman's creator. Beginning in his undergraduate years at Harvard, Marston was influenced by early suffragists and feminists, starting with Emmeline Pankhurst, who was banned from speaking on campus in 1911, when Marston was a freshman. In the 1920s, Marston and his wife, Sadie Elizabeth Holloway, brought into their home Olive Byrne, the niece of Margaret Sanger, one of the most influential feminists of the twentieth century. The Marston family story is a tale of drama, intrigue, and irony. In the 1930s, Marston and Byrne wrote a regular column for Family Circle celebrating conventional family life, even as they themselves pursued lives of extraordinary nonconformity. Marston, internationally known as an expert on truth--he invented the lie detector test--lived a life of secrets, only to spill them on the pages of Wonder Woman.The Secret History of Wonder Woman is a tour de force of intellectual and cultural history. Wonder Woman, Lepore argues, is the missing link in the history of the struggle for women's rights--a chain of events that begins with the women's suffrage campaigns of the early 1900s and ends with the troubled place of feminism a century later.
The Secret Life of English-Medium Instruction in Higher Education: Examining Microphenomena in Context (Routledge Focus on English-Medium Instruction in Higher Education)
by David Block and Sarah KhanThis volume explores the inner-workings of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education (HE) at two universities. After an introductory chapter that sets the scene and provides an essential background, there are four empirically based chapters that draw on data collected from a range of sources at two universities in Catalonia. This includes, interviews, audio/video recordings of classes, audio logs produced by both lecturers and students, policy documents, students’ written work, and student presentation evaluation rubrics. These chapters examine the following issues: (1) the choice of either English or Catalan as the medium of instruction by students and lecturers; (2) how students display ambivalence towards EMI, as well as a general lack of enthusiasm towards and an ironic distance from 'doing education’; (3) how students resist EMI by contravening its English monolingual norm, using their L1s in the classroom; and finally, (4) how EMI lecturers on occasion act as English language teachers despite their continued claims to the contrary. The book ends with a concluding chapter that draws all of the strands together around key themes. This book is written for scholars interested in issues surrounding EMI in HE in general, as well as those EMI in HE practitioners who have adopted a reflective approach to their professional practice and wish to know more about the ins and outs of EMI in HE from multiple perspectives. It is a useful resource for MA and PhD students of applied linguistics programmes in which the roles and uses of English in higher education worldwide are deemed to be important and worthy of attention. Additionally, this will be relevant to courses or modules focusing on language policy, as well as curriculum issues more broadly and language teaching practice more specifically.
The Secret Life of Language (Secret Life of)
by Simon PulleynThis book looks at how language has evolved around the globe from ancestral proto-languages to our recognisable modern tongues. It demonstrates how language has been shaped by social and cultural influences, and even explains how our anatomy affects the articulation, and therefore evolution, of words. Discover the surprising stories behind theorigin of the written word, the difficulties of decipherment and the challenge of inventing from scratch languages such as Dothraki.Combining expert analysis with accessible narrative and fun illustrations, The Secret Life of Language makes even the complex topics of philology, morphology and phonology easy to understand.
The Secret Life of Language: Discover The Origins Of Global Communication (The\secret Life Of Ser.)
by Simon PulleynThis book looks at how language has evolved around the globe from ancestral proto-languages to our recognisable modern tongues. It demonstrates how language has been shaped by social and cultural influences, and even explains how our anatomy affects the articulation, and therefore evolution, of words. Discover the surprising stories behind theorigin of the written word, the difficulties of decipherment and the challenge of inventing from scratch languages such as Dothraki.Combining expert analysis with accessible narrative and fun illustrations, The Secret Life of Language makes even the complex topics of philology, morphology and phonology easy to understand.
The Secret Life of Literature
by Lisa ZunshineAn innovative account that brings together cognitive science, ethnography, and literary history to examine patterns of &“mindreading&” in a wide range of literary works.For over four thousand years, writers have been experimenting with what cognitive scientists call &“mindreading&”: constantly devising new social contexts for making their audiences imagine complex mental states of characters and narrators. In The Secret Life of Literature, Lisa Zunshine uncovers these mindreading patterns, which have, until now, remained invisible to both readers and critics, in works ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh to Invisible Man. Bringing together cognitive science, ethnography, and literary studies, this engaging book transforms our understanding of literary history. Central to Zunshine&’s argument is the exploration of mental states &“embedded&” within each other, as, for instance, when Ellison&’s Invisible Man is aware of how his white Communist Party comrades pretend not to understand what he means, when they want to reassert their position of power. Paying special attention to how race, class, and gender inform literary embedments, Zunshine contrasts this dynamic with real-life patterns studied by cognitive and social psychologists. She also considers community-specific mindreading values and looks at the rise and migration of embedment patterns across genres and national literary traditions, noting particularly the use of deception, eavesdropping, and shame as plot devices. Finally, she investigates mindreading in children&’s literature. Stories for children geared toward different stages of development, she shows, provide cultural scaffolding for initiating young readers into a long-term engagement with the secret life of literature.
The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us
by James W. PennebakerIn "The Secret Life of Pronouns," linguistic and social psychologist Pennebaker uses his groundbreaking research in computational linguistics--in essence, counting the frequency of words we use--to show that our language carries secrets about our feelings, our self-concept, and our social intelligence.
The Secret Life of Stories: From Don Quixote to Harry Potter, How Understanding Intellectual Disability Transforms the Way We Read
by Michael BérubéHow an understanding of intellectual disability transforms the pleasures of readingNarrative informs everything we think, do, plan, remember, and imagine. We tell stories and we listen to stories, gauging their “well-formedness” within a couple of years of learning to walk and talk. Some argue that the capacity to understand narrative is innate to our species; others claim that while that might be so, the invention of writing then re-wired our brains. In The Secret Life of Stories, Michael Bérubé tells a dramatically different tale, in a compelling account of how an understanding of intellectual disability can transform our understanding of narrative. Instead of focusing on characters with disabilities, he shows how ideas about intellectual disability inform an astonishingly wide array of narrative strategies, providing a new and startling way of thinking through questions of time, self-reflexivity, and motive in the experience of reading. Interweaving his own stories with readings of such texts as Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, and Philip K. Dick’s Martian Time-Slip, Bérubé puts his theory into practice, stretching the purview of the study of literature and the role of disability studies within it.Armed only with the tools of close reading, Bérubé demonstrates the immensely generative possibilities in the ways disability is deployed within fiction, finding in them powerful meditations on what it means to be a social being, a sentient creature with an awareness of mortality and causality—and sentience itself. Persuasive and witty, Michael Bérubé engages Harry Potter fans and scholars of literature alike. For all readers, The Secret Life of Stories will fundamentally change the way we think about the way we read.
The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English
by Henry HitchingsCommunication is essential to our lives, but how often do we stop to think about where the words we use have come from? Have you ever thought about which words in English have been borrowed from Arabic, French or Dutch? Try admiral, landscape and marmalade just for starters. The Secret Life of Words is a wide-ranging account not only of the history of English, but also of how words witness history, reflect social change and remind us of our turbulent past. Henry Hitchings delves into our promiscuous language and reveals how and why it has absorbed words from more than 350 other languages many originating from the most unlikely of places, such as shampoo from Hindi and kiosk from Turkish.From the Norman Conquest to the present day, Hitchings narrates the story of English as an archive of our human experience and uncovers the secrets behind everyday words. This is a celebration of our language; after reading it, you will never again take the words we use for granted.
The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham: A Biography
by Selina HastingsHe was a brilliant teller of tales, one of the most widely read authors of the twentieth century, and at one time the most famous writer in the world, yet W. Somerset Maugham’s own true story has never been fully told. At last, the fascinating truth is revealed in a landmark biography by the award-winning writer Selina Hastings. Granted unprecedented access to Maugham’s personal correspondence and to newly uncovered interviews with his only child, Hastings portrays the secret loves, betrayals, integrity, and passion that inspired Maugham to create such classics as The Razor’s Edge and Of Human Bondage.Hastings vividly presents Maugham’s lonely childhood spent with unloving relatives after the death of his parents, a trauma that resulted in shyness, a stammer, and for the rest of his life an urgent need for physical tenderness. Here, too, are his adult triumphs on the stage and page, works that allowed him a glittering social life in which he befriended and sometimes fell out with such luminaries as Dorothy Parker, Charlie Chaplin, D. H. Lawrence, and Winston Churchill.The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham portrays in full for the first time Maugham’s disastrous marriage to Syrie Wellcome, a manipulative society woman of dubious morality who trapped Maugham with a pregnancy and an attempted suicide. Hastings also explores Maugham’s many affairs with men, including his great love, Gerald Haxton, an alcoholic charmer and a cad. Maugham’s courageous work in secret intelligence during two world wars is described in fascinating detail—experiences that provided the inspiration for the groundbreaking Ashenden stories. From the West End to Broadway, from China to the South Pacific, Maugham’s restless and remarkably productive life is thrillingly recounted as Hastings uncovers the real stories behind such classics as “Rain,” The Painted Veil, Cakes & Ale, and other well-known tales.An epic biography of a hugely talented and hugely conflicted man, The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham is the definitive account of Maugham’s extraordinary life.From the Hardcover edition.
The Secret Marriage of Sherlock Holmes
by Michael AtkinsonThe Secret Marriage of Sherlock Holmesis about reading, a process that we take for granted. But Sherlock Holmes, the cultural icon to whose exploits Michael Atkinson gives new readings, became famous by taking nothing for granted. Holmes's adventures can be read in new ways, including ways that he himself would have found startling, but which can give contemporary readers satisfaction. In clear, accessible prose that will engage specialists and lay readers alike, Atkinson engages in "a series of flirtations" with nine of Arthur Conan Doyle's favorite detective fictions, using the tools of modern literary theory, from depth psychology to deconstruction. Bluebeard, the kundalini serpent, and Conan Doyle's mother pop up alongside Jung, Nietzsche, and Derrida as guides to new understandings of these classic stories. Just as Holmes uses treatises on tobacco ash and tattoos to give fresh readings to puzzling facts, Atkinson employs widely different critical strategies to unravel the mysteries of reading itself. "What a delightful book! This is surely the most interesting writing you will ever read about Sherlock Holmes, but it is much more. Michael Atkinson gives us literary criticism at its best: the sheer fun of watching a bold and imaginative reader breathe into well-loved, but well-worn, fictions new and enchanting life. Atkinson's mind races as nimbly as Holmes's own, and he makes the stories our hansom cab through human nature itself. A tour de force!" --Norman N. Holland, author ofMurder in a Dephi Seminar "A book that speaks directly to readers. . . Atkinson sees far beneath the surface of the Sherlock stories to provide fascinating commentary. " --Cincinnati Post "Atkinson demonstrates a love and knowledge of the Holmes stories. . . I would recommend The Secret Marriage of Sherlock Holmes enthusiastically to any lover of the Canon who is prepared to have their perceptions widened. " --Mystery Writers of America Michael Atkinson is Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Cincinnati. For additional news, reviews and related Sherlockiana (leaving Press site): Additional information supplied by the author- http://ucaswww. mcm. uc. edu/English/Holmes/ http://ucaswww. mcm. uc. edu/English/Holmes/"
The Secret of Chanel No. 5: The Intimate History of the World's Most Famous Perfume
by Tilar J. Mazzeo“Who knew that such a tiny bottle housed so many secrets?” —Michael Tonello, author of Bringing Home the BirkinTilar J. Mazzeo, author of the New York Times bestseller The Widow Clicquot (an Amazon Best of the Month book in October 2008) returns with a captivating history of the world’s most famous, seductive, and popular perfume: Chanel No. 5. Mazzeo’s sweeping story of the iconic scent (known as “le monstre” in the fragrance industry) stretches from Coco Chanel’s early success to the rise of the seminal fragrance during the 1950s to the confirmation of its bestseller status in today’s crowded perfume market.“Here is the life of one of the 20th century’s most interesting and deeply complicated women, a fascinating cultural history, and the story of an extraordinary perfume.” —Chandler Burr, New York Times scent critic and author of The Perfect Scent