A Superior Spectre

Jeff is dying. Haunted by memories and grappling with the shame of his desires, he runs away to remote Scotland with a piece of experimental tech that allows him to enter the mind of someone in the past. Instructed to only use it three times, Jeff – self-indulgent, isolated and deteriorating – ignores this advice. In the late 1860s, Leonora lives a contented life in the Scottish Highlands, surrounded by nature, her hands and mind kept busy. Contemplating her future and the social conventions that bind her, a secret romantic friendship with the local laird is interrupted when her father sends her to stay with her aunt in Edinburgh – an intimidating, sooty city; the place where her mother perished. But Leonora’s ability to embrace her new life is shadowed by a dark presence that begins to lurk behind her eyes, and strange visions that bear no resemblance to anything she has ever seen or known… A Superior Spectre is a highly accomplished debut novel about our capacity for curiosity, and our dangerous entitlement to it, and reminds us the scariest ghosts aren’t those that go bump in the night, but those that are born and create a place for themselves in the human soul.

Although Emily Dickinson copied and bound her poems into manuscript notebooks, in the century since her death her poems have been read as single lyrics with little or no regard for the context she created for them in her fascicles. Choosing Not Choosing is the first book-length consideration of the poems in their manuscript context. Sharon Cameron demonstrates that to read the poems with attention to their placement in the fascicles is to observe scenes and subjects unfolding between and among poems rather than to think of them as isolated riddles, enigmatic in both syntax and reference. Thus Choosing Not Choosing illustrates that the contextual sense of Dickinson is not the canonical sense of Dickinson. Considering the poems in the context of the fascicles, Cameron argues that an essential refusal of choice pervades all aspects of Dickinson's poetry. Because Dickinson never chose whether she wanted her poems read as single lyrics or in sequence (nor is it clear where any fascicle text ends, or even how, in context, a poem is bounded), "not choosing" is a textual issue; it is also a formal issue because Dickinson refused to chose among poetic variants; it is a thematic issue; and, finally, it is a philosophical one, since what is produced by "not choosing" is a radical indifference to difference. Extending the readings of Dickinson offered in her earlier book Lyric Time, Cameron continues to enlarge our understanding of the work of this singular American poet.

The strange rhymes of Emily Dickinson's verse have offended some readers, attracted others, and proved a stumbling block for critics. In the first thorough analysis of the poet's rhyming practices, Judy Jo Small goes beyond simple classification and enumeration to reveal the aesthetic and semantic value of Dickinson's rhymes and show how they help shape the meaning of her lyrics. Considering Dickinson's rhyming technique in light of its historical context, Small argues that the poet's radical innovations were both an outgrowth of nineteenth-century aesthetics ideas about the music of poetry and a reaction against conventional constraints—not the least of which was the image of the female poet as a songbird pouring forth her soul's joys and sorrows in lyrical melody. Unlike other scholars, Small attaches special importance to Dickinson's own musical background. Revealing Dickinson's auditory imagination as a primary source of her poetic power, Small shows that sound is an important subject in the verse and that the phonetic texture contributes to the meaning. By looking closely at individual poems, Small demonstrates that Dickinson's deviations from "normal" rhyme schemes play a significant part in her artistic design: her modulations and dislocations of rhyme serve to structure the poems and contribute to their dynamic shifts of mood and meaning. Analyzing Dickinson's more daring experiments, Small shows how the poet achieved uncanny effects with fluctuating partial rhymes in some poems and with homonymic puns in others. It is in the interplay between the musical and the written aspects of Dickinson's language, Small contends, that her poetry comes alive. Small takes particular note of the use of rhyme at the ends of poems, illustrating Dickinson's brilliant effects in closing some poems decisively and in leaving others tantalizingly open-ended. Teaching us how to listen to Dickinson's poems and not simply to scrutinize them on paper,Positive as Soundis an innovative, lucidly written book that contributes not only to Dickinson scholarship but also to the general study of poetics.

This carefully crafted ebook: "BOND VS. BLOFELD – The Spectre Trilogy (Complete Edition)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a super villain from the James Bond series of novels and films. An evil genius with aspirations of world domination, he is the archenemy of the British Secret Service agent James Bond. Blofeld is head of the global criminal organisation SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) and is commonly referred to as Number 1. "Thunderball" - The crime syndicate, SPECTRE, headed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld blackmails the Western powers with their stolen atomic bombs. Can Bond deflect Blofeld's evil plans and foil his attempts? "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" - Blofeld is hiding in Switzerland to complete what he couldn't in "Thunderball". Will Bond's attacks on his centre go unpunished? What will the evil super villian do next? "You Only Live Twice" - After the death of his wife Bond loses his steam as a No. 1 secret agent. Sent on a mission in Japan, Bond comes face to face with Blofeld again . . . Ian Fleming (1908–1964) was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer who is best known for his James Bond series of spy novels. James Bond is a British Secret Service agent and often referred to by his code name, 007.

Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Rome, Tom Rachman's wry, vibrant debut follows the topsy-turvy private lives of the reporters, editors, and executives of an international English language newspaper as they struggle to keep it - and themselves - afloat. Fifty years and many changes have ensued since the paper was founded by an enigmatic millionaire, and now, amid the stained carpeting and dingy office furniture, the staff's personal dramas seem far more important than the daily headlines. Kathleen, the imperious editor in chief, is smarting from a betrayal in her open marriage; Arthur, the lazy obituary writer, is transformed by a personal tragedy; Abby, the embattled financial officer, discovers that her job cuts and her love life are intertwined in a most unexpected way. Out in the field, a veteran Paris freelancer goes to desperate lengths for his next byline, while the new Cairo stringer is mercilessly manipulated by an outrageous war correspondent with an outsize ego. And in the shadows is the isolated young publisher who pays more attention to his prized basset hound, Schopenhauer, than to the fate of his family's quirky newspaper. As the era of print news gives way to the Internet age and this imperfect crew stumbles toward an uncertain future, the paper's rich history is revealed, including the surprising truth about its founder's intentions. Spirited, moving, and highly original, The Imperfectionists will establish Tom Rachman as one of our most perceptive, assured literary talents.

Arguing that intellectual movements, such as deconstruction, postsecular theory, and political theology, have different implications for cultures and societies that live with the debilitating effects of past imperialisms, Arvind Mandair unsettles the politics of knowledge construction in which the category of "religion" continues to be central. Through a case study of Sikhism, he launches an extended critique of religion as a cultural universal. At the same time, he presents a portrait of how certain aspects of Sikh tradition were reinvented as "religion" during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. India's imperial elite subtly recast Sikh tradition as a sui generis religion, which robbed its teachings of their political force. In turn, Sikhs began to define themselves as a "nation" and a "world religion" that was separate from, but parallel to, the rise of the Indian state and global Hinduism. Rather than investigate these processes in isolation from Europe, Mandair shifts the focus closer to the political history of ideas, thereby recovering part of Europe's repressed colonial memory. Mandair rethinks the intersection of religion and the secular in discourses such as history of religions, postcolonial theory, and recent continental philosophy. Though seemingly unconnected, these discourses are shown to be linked to a philosophy of "generalized translation" that emerged as a key conceptual matrix in the colonial encounter between India and the West. In this riveting study, Mandair demonstrates how this philosophy of translation continues to influence the repetitions of religion and identity politics in the lives of South Asians, and the way the academy, state, and media have analyzed such phenomena.

A circle of spies travels by Cadillac from Switzerland to the Sudan in this critically acclaimed novel: “arguably the finest modern American spy story” (The New York Times). Paul Christopher is cool, urbane, clear-sighted—a perfect American agent in deep cover in the twilight world of international intrigue. But now even he does not know which side is good or bad in a maze of double- and triplecross. When a small group of international agents embarks on a road trip from Switzerland to the Sudan, Christopher is among them. Along for the ride are a comical Polish exile, a beautiful Hungarian seductress, and a North African prince with an appetite for women and a lust for power. Christopher only knows that he has to find whose finger is on the trigger of a terrorist threat that could turn the Cold War uncomfortably hot—and God help everyone if he makes a mistake. Related as a collection of dossier notes on the mission, The Miernik Dossier reveals a complicated web in which each character spins his or her own deception.

Hugo Award-winning author Timothy Zahn makes his triumphant return to the Star Wars(r) universe in this first of an epic new two-volume series in which the New Republic must face its most dangerous enemy yet--a dead Imperial warlord. The Empire stands at the brink of total collapse. But they have saved their most heinous plan for last. First a plot is hatched that could destroy the New Republic in a bloodbath of genocide and civil war. Then comes the shocking news that Grand Admiral Thrawn--the most cunning and ruthless warlord in history--has apparently returned from the dead to lead the Empire to a long-prophesied victory. Facing incredible odds, Han and Leia begin a desperate race against time to prevent the New Republic from unraveling in the face of two inexplicable threats--one from within and one from without. Meanwhile, Luke teams up with Mara Jade, using the Force to track down a mysterious pirate ship with a crew of clones. Yet, perhaps most dangerous of all, are those who lurk in the shadows, orchestrating a dark plan that will turn the New Republic and the Empire into their playthings.