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American Short Novels
by R. P. Blackmur-Billy Budd by Herman Melville -The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain -Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane -Washington Square by Henry James -Melanctha by Gertrude Stein -The Great American Novel by William Carlos Williams -The Venetian Glass Nephew by Elinor Wylie
American Short Stories
by Mcdougal LittellThe American short stories presented in the book are grouped under the following sections : Romanticism and Realism,The Birth of the Modern,Building a Tradition,New Voices and Identities.
American Short Stories (Second Edition)
by Perfection Learning Editorial StaffThis collection of short stories introduces you to some of America's most important writers though you may not like every one, but each author has a unique message to send and a distinctive way of sending it.
American Short Stories: 1920 To Present
by Perfection LearningAn American father in search of his daughter in France. A ranch woman in the Salinas Valley who yearns for companionship and a sense of self-worth. A postmistress in Mississippi who decides to live at the post office after feuding with her eccentric family. A terrified soldier in Vietnam who longs for his Minnesota home. These are some of the characters and situations you will encounter in American Short Stories: 1920 to the Present. They are as varied as the geography of the U.S. itself.
American Short Story Masterpieces
by Raymond Carver Tom JenksThis highly acclaimed collection of short stories by American writers contains only the best literary art of the past four decades. With a bias toward realism, editors Raymond Carver and Tom Jenks have selected fiction that "tells a story" and tells it with a masterful handling of language, situation, and insight. But what is so special about this volume is that it mirrors our age, our concerns, and our lives. Whether it's the end of a marriage, as in Bobbie Ann Manson's "Shiloh," or the struggle with self-esteem and weight in Andre Dubus's "The Fat Girl," the 36 works included her probe issues that give us that "shock of recognition" that is the hallmark of great art--wonderful, absorbing fiction that will be read and reread for decades to come.
American Sketches: Great Leaders, Creative Thinkers, and Heroes of a Hurricane
by Walter IsaacsonWhat are the roots of creativity? What makes for great leadership? How do influential people end up rippling the surface of history? In this collection of essays, Walter Isaacson reflects on the lessons to be learned from Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, and various other interesting characters he has chronicled as a biographer and journalist. The people he writes about have an awesome intelligence, in most cases, but that is not the secret of their success. They had qualities that were even more rare, such as imagination and true curiosity. Isaacson reflects on how he became a writer, the lessons he learned from various people he met, and the challenges he sees for journalism in the digital age. He also offers loving tributes to his hometown of New Orleans, which both before and after Hurricane Katrina offered many of the ingredients for a creative culture, and to the Louisiana novelist Walker Percy, who was an early mentor. In an anecdotal and personal way, Isaacson describes the joys of the "so-called writing life" and the way that tales about the lives of fascinating people can enlighten our own lives.
American Skin
by Don De GraziaThe story of Alex Verdi who joins a multi-racial group of anti-Nazi skinheads.
American Skin
by Ken BruenAt the beginning of Bruen's dark tribute to the Irish fascination with the American dream, Stephen Blake is on the run after a bank heist, hoping to disappear in the desert near Tucson. Blake has the money and his girlfriend, Siobhan, knows how to launder it. All he has to do is change his accent and his skin and pass as an American. But John A. Stapleton, contract killer for the IRA, wants more than his share of the swag--and the psychotic Dade, obsessively devoted to the music of Tammy Wynette, is wandering the Southwest like a slaughter wagon. Noir master Bruen (The Guards) effortlessly moves his storyline back and forth in time, all his trademark pop-culture references in place, the banshee of existential agony wailing loudly.
American Skin: A Novel
by Ken BruenAt the beginning of Bruen&’s dark tribute to the Irish fascination with the American dream, Stephen Blake is on the run after a bank heist, hoping to disappear in the desert near Tucson. Blake has the money and his girlfriend, Siobhan, knows how to launder it. All he has to do is change his accent and his skin and pass as an American. But John A. Stapleton, contract killer for the IRA, wants more than his share of the swag—and the psychotic Dade, obsessively devoted to the music of Tammy Wynette, is wandering the Southwest like a slaughter wagon. Noir master Bruen (The Guards) effortlessly moves his storyline back and forth in time, all his trademark pop-culture references in place, the banshee of existential agony wailing loudly.
American Slavery As It Is: Selections from the Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (Dover Thrift Editions)
by Theodore Dwight WeldThe stories of hundreds of African-Americans who lived in bondage are preserved in this powerful 1839 chronicle. Compiled by a prominent abolitionist, the accounts include personal narratives from freed slaves as well as testimonials from active and former slave owners, presenting a condemnation of slavery from both those who experienced it and those who perpetuated it. Detailing the overall conditions of slaves across multiple states and several years, the book includes information on their diet, clothing, housing, and working hours as well as their punishments and suffering.Connecticut farmer-turned-abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld (1803–1895) was a central leader of the American Anti-Slavery Society and traveled the country lecturing against slavery. Weld took great pains to document the trustworthiness of contributors to American Slavery so that there could be no doubt as to its authenticity. A major influence on Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, the book sold 100,000 copies in its first year of publication and remains a valuable historical testament. This edited selection presents these powerful first-person accounts to a new generation.
American Socialist Triptych: The Literary-Political Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Upton Sinclair, and W. E. B. Du Bois
by Van Wienen Mark W."A meticulously researched, highly informed, carefully argued, and very accessible account of American socialism, socialists, and socialistic thinking, from the late nineteenth century through the 1960s . . . challenges the intellectual and political legacy of Werner Sombart'sWhy Is There No Socialism in the United States?, whose spirit still hovers over animated discussions about the 'failures' of socialism in the United States. " ---James A. Miller, George Washington University "A valuable rethinking and reframing of the traditions of leftist literary scholarship in the U. S. " ---Sylvia Cook, University of Missouri, St. Louis American Socialist Triptych: The Literary-Political Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Upton Sinclair, and W. E. B. Du Boisexplores the contributions of three writers to the development of American socialism over a fifty--year period and asserts the vitality of socialism in modern American literature and culture. Drawing upon a wide range of texts including archival sources, Mark W. Van Wienen demonstrates the influence of reform-oriented, democratic socialism both in the careers of these writers and in U. S. politics between 1890 and 1940. While offering unprecedented in-depth analysis of modern American socialist literature, this book charts the path by which the supposedly impossible, dangerous ideals of a cooperative commonwealth were realized, in part, by the New Deal. American Socialist Triptychprovides in-depth, innovative readings of the featured writers and their engagement with socialist thought and action. Upton Sinclair represents the movement's most visible manifestation, the Socialist Party of America, founded in 1901; Charlotte Perkins Gilman reflects the socialist elements in both feminism and 1890s reform movements, and W. E. B. Du Bois illuminates social democratic aspirations within the NAACP. Van Wienen's book seeks to re-energize studies of Sinclair by treating him as a serious cultural figure whose career peaked not in the early success ofThe Junglebut in his nearly successful 1934 run for the California governorship. It also demonstrates as never before the centrality of socialism throughout Gilman's and Du Bois's literary and political careers. More broadly,American Socialist Triptychchallenges previous scholarship on American radical literature, which has focused almost exclusively on the 1930s and Communist writers. Van Wienen argues that radical democracy was not the phenomenon of a decade or of a single group but a sustained tradition dispersed within the culture, providing a useful genealogical explanation for how socialist ideas were actually implemented through the New Deal. American Socialist Triptychalso revises modern American literary history, arguing for the endurance of realist and utopian literary modes at the height of modernist literary experimentation and showing the importance of socialism not only to the three featured writers but also to their peers, including Edward Bellamy, Hamlin Garland, Jack London, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Claude McKay. Further, by demonstrating the importance of social democratic thought to feminist and African American campaigns for equality, the book dialogues with recent theories of radical egalitarianism. Readers interested in American literature, U. S. history, political theory, and race, gender, and class studies will all find inAmerican Socialist Triptycha valuable and provocative resource.
American Soldier
by Matt MorilloDrama / Characters: 3m, 2f / In American Soldiers, the patriarch of a politically prominent Long Island family fights to hold the family together when his eldest daughter, an Army veteran, returns from the Middle East for an uneasy homecoming. The girl, emotionally scarred from her military service, is struggling to take her ex-boyfriend and sister away with her to start a new life in Colorado. Her aim is to liberate them of the hometown influences of society, religion and class that led her to enlist. The play reveals the urge of children to break away, the power of family destiny and the emotional ties that bind. What is it about Nassau and Suffolk counties that makes them a breeding ground for "good little American soldiers," as Angela Coletti, the returning veteran, says? Her late mother had been a local Assemblywoman and her brother, Carlo Jr., is now running for a congressional seat. They are liberal politicians and "modern" Catholics, chastened by the wars of our time, who would seem to hold the old beliefs at arms' length. But to Angela, they are no more than cogs in a machine of conformity whose morals make no sense and who perpetuate dangerous myths. The force of her rebellion is set against the determination of her father, a Vietnam Veteran who is equally committed to holding the family together. His methods range from the good old fatherly temper tantrum to the kind of heart-to-heart with his soldier-daughter that only veterans can have. Through their tug of war, we witness the real forces that keep many of our young people fighting what Angela calls, "the same fight, generation after generation." It's the power of family and the hold of religion.
American Son: A Novel
by Brian Ascalon RoleyA powerful novel about ethnically fluid California, and the corrosive relationship between two Filipino brothers.Told with a hard-edged purity that brings to mind Cormac McCarthy and Denis Johnson, American Son is the story of two Filipino brothers adrift in contemporary California. The older brother, Tomas, fashions himself into a Mexican gangster and breeds pricey attack dogs, which he trains in German and sells to Hollywood celebrities. The narrator is younger brother Gabe, who tries to avoid the tar pit of Tomas's waywardness, yet moves ever closer to embracing it. Their mother, who moved to America to escape the caste system of Manila and is now divorced from their American father, struggles to keep her sons in line while working two dead-end jobs. When Gabe runs away, he brings shame and unforeseen consequences to the family. Full of the ache of being caught in a violent and alienating world, American Son is a debut novel that captures the underbelly of the modern immigrant experience.A Los Angeles Times Best Book, New York Times Notable Book, and a Kiriyama Pacific Rim Prize Finalist
American Song and Struggle from Columbus to World War 2: A Cultural History
by Will KaufmanLong before anyone ever heard of 'protest music', people in America were singing about their struggles. They sang for justice and fairness, food and shelter, and equality and freedom; they sang to be acknowledged. Sometimes they also sang to oppress. This book uncovers the history of these people and their songs, from the moment Columbus made fateful landfall to the start of the Second World War, when 'protest music' emerged as an identifiable brand. Cutting across musical genres, Will Kaufman recovers the passionate voices of America itself. We encounter songs of the mainland and the conquered territories of Hawai'i, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines; we hear Indigenous songs, immigrant songs and Klan songs, minstrel songs and symphonies, songs of the heard and the unheard, songs of the celebrated and the anonymous, of the righteous and the despicable. This magisterial book shows that all these songs are woven into the very fabric of American history.
American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin (Penguin Poets)
by Terrance HayesA powerful, timely, dazzling collection of sonnets from one of America's most acclaimed poets, Terrance Hayes, the National Book Award winning author of Lighthead <P><P>"The right poetry collection for right now." - The Los Angeles Times <P><P>In seventy poems bearing the same title, Terrance Hayes explores the meanings of American, of assassin, and of love in the sonnet form. <P><P>Written during the first two hundred days of the Trump presidency, these poems are haunted by the country's past and future eras and errors, its dreams and nightmares. <P>Inventive, compassionate, hilarious, melancholy, and bewildered--the wonders of this new collection are irreducible and stunning.
American Speeches: Political Oratory from Abraham Lincoln to Bill Clinton
by Ted WidmerFrom the book: Public speeches have profoundly shaped American history and culture, transforming not only our politics but also our language and our sense of national identity. This volume collects the unabridged texts of 83 eloquent and dramatic speeches delivered by 45 American public figures between 1865 and 1997, beginning with Abraham Lincoln's last speech on Reconstruction and ending with Bill Clinton's heartfelt tribute to the Little Rock Nine. During this period American political oratory continued to evolve, as a more conversational style, influenced by the intimacy of radio and television, emerged alongside traditional forms of rhetoric. Included are speeches on Reconstruction by Thaddeus Stevens and African-American congressman Robert Brown Elliott, Frederick Douglass's brilliant oration on Abraham Lincoln, and Oliver Wendell Holmes's "touched with fire" Memorial Day Address. Speeches by Robert Ingersoll and William Jennings Bryan capture the fervor of 19th-century political conventions, while Theodore Roosevelt and Carl Schurz offer opposing views on imperialism. Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell denounce the cruelty of lynching and the injustice of Jim Crow; Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Carrie Chapman Catt advocate the enfranchisement of women; and Woodrow Wilson and Henry Cabot Lodge present conflicting visions of the League of Nations. Also included are wartime speeches by George Patton and Dwight Eisenhower; an address on the atomic bomb by J. Robert Oppenheimer; Richard Nixon's "Checkers Speech"; Malcolm X's "The Ballot or the Bullet"; Barry Goldwater's speech to the 1964 Republican convention; Mario Savio urging Berkeley students to stop "the machine"; Barbara Jordan defending the Constitution during Watergate; and an extensive selection of speeches by Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. Ted Widmer, editor, is t
American Spirits
by Russell BanksFrom one of America&’s most celebrated storytellers come three dark, interlocking tales about the residents of a rural New York town, and the shocking headlines that become their local mythologies.A husband sells property to a mysterious, temperamental stranger, and is hounded on social media when he publicly questions the man&’s character. A couple grows concerned when an enigmatic family moves next door, and the children start sneaking over to beg for help. Two dangerous criminals kidnap an elderly couple and begin blackmailing their grandson, demanding that he pay back what he owes.Suspenseful, thrilling, and expertly crafted, American Spirits explores the hostile undercurrents of our communities and American politics at large, as well as the ways local tragedies can be both devastating and, somehow, everyday. Ushering the reader through the town of Sam Dent, Russell Banks has etched yet another brilliant entry into the bedrock of American fiction.
American Splendor: Our Movie Year
by Harvey PekarFrom off the streets of Cleveland, the amazing and occasionally regrettable true-life adventures of Harvey Pekar, cineaste. Harvey Pekar is from Cleveland. This much you know. But with the release of American Splendor, the indie hit film based on his comic of the same name, the world discovered Harvey in earnest. Once Harvey was content merely to flirt with fame. But when fame wanted a commitment, he found himself a household name. Sort of. And, to tell you the truth, it&’s starting to bug the hell out of him. An original, incisive graphic novel featuring the talents of R. Crumb, Gary Dumm, Mark Zingarelli, and other artists, Our Movie Year chronicles a whirlwind twelve months in the life of Harvey Pekar. It recounts his rise from the filing room at the Cleveland VA hospital to the red carpet at Cannes, Sundance, the Oscars, and beyond–where Harvey won awards, accolades, and the promise of a bigger paycheck. A lot of funny things can happen in a year, and many of them happened to Harvey. And now everyone gets to read about them in Our Movie Year.
American Spy: A Novel
by Lauren Wilkinson<P><P>What if your sense of duty required you to betray the man you love? <P><P>It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. <P><P>So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes. <P><P>Yes, even though she secretly admires the work Sankara is doing for his country. Yes, even though she is still grieving the mysterious death of her sister, whose example led Marie to this career path in the first place. Yes, even though a furious part of her suspects she’s being offered the job because of her appearance and not her talent. <P><P>In the year that follows, Marie will observe Sankara, seduce him, and ultimately have a hand in the coup that will bring him down. But doing so will change everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, a lover, a sister, and a good American. <P><P>Inspired by true events—Thomas Sankara is known as “Africa’s Che Guevara”—American Spy knits together a gripping spy thriller, a heartbreaking family drama, and a passionate romance. This is a face of the Cold War you’ve never seen before, and it introduces a powerful new literary voice.
American Spy: a Cold War spy thriller like you've never read before
by Lauren WilkinsonA BARACK OBAMA SUMMER READING PICKSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 CENTRE FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE HWA DEBUT CROWN'A whole lot more than just a spy thriller, wrapping together the ties of family, of love and of country' BARACK OBAMA'There has never been anything like it' MARLON JAMES (GQ)'A compelling read' MAIL ON SUNDAY'Brilliant Cold War spy thriller. A gripping tale and an unusual take on the spy genre told from an intriguing perspective' HWA DEBUT CROWN JUDGES'Pacy and very exciting' DAILY TELEGRAPH__________________________________What if your sense of duty required you to betray the man you love? It's 1986, the heart of the Cold War. Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She's brilliant and talented, but she's also a black woman working in an all-white boys' club, and her career has stalled with routine paperwork - until she's recruited to a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic, revolutionary president of Burkina Faso, whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention.In the year that follows, Marie will observe Thomas, seduce him, and ultimately, have a hand in the coup that will bring him down. But doing so will change everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, a lover, and a good American.'A stunning book' PAUL BEATTY'Intelligent and propulsive' GUARDIAN 'A spy thriller like you've never read before' TIME
American Spy: a Cold War spy thriller like you've never read before
by Lauren WilkinsonA BARACK OBAMA SUMMER READING 2019 PICKSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 CENTRE FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE'A whole lot more than just a spy thriller, wrapping together the ties of family, of love and of country' BARACK OBAMA'There has never been anything like it' MARLON JAMES (GQ)'A compelling read' MAIL ON SUNDAY'Pacy and very exciting' DAILY TELEGRAPH__________________________________What if your sense of duty required you to betray the man you love? It's 1986, the heart of the Cold War. Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She's brilliant and talented, but she's also a black woman working in an all-white boys' club, and her career has stalled with routine paperwork - until she's recruited to a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic, revolutionary president of Burkina Faso, whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention.In the year that follows, Marie will observe Thomas, seduce him, and ultimately, have a hand in the coup that will bring him down. But doing so will change everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, a lover, and a good American.'A stunning book' PAUL BEATTY'Intelligent and propulsive' GUARDIAN 'A spy thriller like you've never read before' TIME
American Standard
by John BlairIt is hard to see what lurks beneath the surface of a muddy river, an alligator-infested lake, or a John Blair short story. At first glance, the characters in American Standard may seem as familiar and uncomplicated as old drinking buddies or innocuous next-door neighbors. Yet, their dark, dangerous, and disturbing currents run deep." "Julia is a devout, demure, churchgoing woman, but underneath her placidity roils discontent, perhaps even madness. On what would have been an otherwise normal Sunday morning, she wakes up, walks downstairs, and shoots her husband with his own revolver. A middle-aged, unemployed technical writer, Jack owns a home in the suburbs and a mutt named Hoover. Yet he is drowning in suburbia; his wife has been sleeping alone on a futon for the past year, and he risks his life every night during his secret outings. At the Young Adults Group campout, not-quite-innocent Fisher reels in more than he expects to find, both behind the dark sunglasses of the minister's wife and in the phosphorescent waters of a ghostly river. Existing on a modest church stipend and his belief in God, Pastor Bob trawls life's shallows for meaning, salvation, and a modicum of hope as he attempts to save his marriage. Dave spends his afternoon lugging the belongings of college students in the back of his truck and dozing through episodes of The Young and the Restless. When he meets a distraught coed, he and his small universe are nearly swallowed by a fast-growing sinkhole of circumstance and misfortune. Unemployed, uninterested Billy's most egregious offense just might be lethargy. He embarks on a tempestuous motorcycle ride that leaves him balancing on a razor's edge between tragedy and salvation. Set mostly in central Florida, especially the suburban streets near Orlando, Blair's interconnected stories capture lives of disquieting longing and stubborn isolation. For them, this is the American standard, as ubiquitous and undistinguished as vitreous china bathroom fixtures.
American Star: Vendetta: Lucky's Revenge, The Love Killers, American Star, Thrill, Dangerous Kiss, The Bitch
by Jackie CollinsNick and Lauren can never forget each other. Teenage small-town lovers - he from the wrong side of the tracks, she the prettiest girl in town - their love was the town scandal, forbidden, sizzling and unforgettable, ending abruptly in a tragedy that sent them into separate orbits. Nick pursues his dream of acting, and after a series of wild adventures begins the slow rise that will make him one of Hollywood's biggest stars. Lauren goes to New York and enters the modeling world, surprising everyone with a career that takes off in a direction she never expected. American Star follows them both on their trips to fame, as Nick and Lauren, haunted by the secret they share, try to live without each other - only to find they can't.American Star is a compelling story of love, sex and murder, set against the glamorous backgrounds of New York and Hollywood.
American Star: Vendetta: Lucky's Revenge, The Love Killers, American Star, Thrill, Dangerous Kiss, The Bitch
by Jackie CollinsAT ITS HEART ARE TWO EXTRAORDINARY LOVERS, SEPARATED BY TRAGIC CIRCUMSTANCES, yearning for each other, yet seemingly never able to be together again.Jackie Collins' American Star is a love story for the ages.Nick and Lauren can never forget each other. Teenage small-town lovers -- he from the wrong side of the tracks, she the prettiest girl in town -- their love was the town scandal, forbidden, sizzling and unforgettable, ending abruptly in a tragedy that sent them into separate orbits.Nick pursues his dream of acting, and after a series of wild adventures begins the slow rise that will make him one of Hollywood's biggest stars. Lauren goes to New York and enters the modeling world, surprising everyone with a career that takes off in a direction she never expected. American Star follows them both on their trips to fame, as Nick and Lauren, haunted by the secret they share, try to live without each other -- only to find they can't.American Star is a compelling story of love, sex and murder, set against the glamorous backgrounds of New York and Hollywood, as only Jackie Collins!
American Stories: A collection of illustrated poems
by Jon FieldingAmerican Stories is a series of short poems about life in a changing America. Melancholic stories, sketched out over wandering feelings of despair and longing, meandering through a deep changing political and social landscape.Capturing themes from key moments in contemporary American culture, alongside stories of frustration and despair, inspired by more recent events. The selection of poems within explores feelings drawn out in everyday America, from a nation at times left in despair, let down by so-called leaders, and left uncertain about its future, with many questioning its place in the world today.We hope and we pray in the American way. It&’s only poetry they say…