Rich And Strange

Like the products of the "sea-change" described in Ariel's song in The Tempest, modernist writing is "rich and strange." Its greatness lies in its density and its dislocations, which have until now been viewed as a repudiation of and an alternative to the cultural implications of turn-of-the-century political radicalism. Marianne DeKoven argues powerfully to the contrary, maintaining that modernist form evolved precisely as a means of representing the terrifying appeal of movements such as socialism and feminism. Organized around pairs and groups of female-and male-signed texts, the book reveals the gender-inflected ambivalence of modernist writers. Male modernists, desiring utter change, nevertheless feared the loss of hegemony it might entail, while female modernists feared punishment for desiring such change. With water imagery as a focus throughout, DeKoven provides extensive new readings of canonical modernist texts and of works in the feminist and African-American canons not previously considered modernist. Building on insights of Luce Irigaray, Klaus Theweleit, and Jacques Derrida, she finds in modernism a paradigm of unresolved contradiction that enacts in the realm of form an alternative to patriarchal gender relations.

From the acclaimed, New York Times bestselling award-winning author of Serena and The Cove, thirty of his finest short stories, collected in one volume. No one captures the complexities of Appalachia—a rugged, brutal landscape of exquisite beauty—as evocatively and indelibly as author and poet Ron Rash. Winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, two O Henry prizes, and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, Rash brilliantly illuminates the tensions between the traditional and the modern, the old and new south, tenderness and violence, man and nature. Though the focus is regional, the themes of Rash’s work are universal, striking an emotional chord that resonates deep within each of our lives. Something Rich and Strange showcases this revered master’s artistry and craftsmanship in thirty stories culled from his previously published collections Nothing Gold Can Stay, Burning Bright, Chemistry, and The Night New Jesus Fell to Earth. Each work of short fiction demonstrates Rash’s dazzling ability to evoke the heart and soul of this land and its people—men and women inexorably tethered to the geography that defines and shapes them. Filled with suspense and myth, hope and heartbreak, told in language that flows like “shimmering, liquid poetry” (Atlanta Journal Constitution), Something Rich and Strange is an iconic work from an American literary virtuoso.

Something Rich and Strange breathes fresh air into a tired list of psychological how-to and theological you-should books. In this inspiring work, psychologist Susan Davis guides us through a process of self-discovery and personal growth toward new freedom, deeper love, and more joyous living. Using the biblical stories of the Exodus and of Jesus death and resurrection, ideas from modern psychology, and the words of writers, poets, and ordinary people, she shows that the path of the transformative journey is well traveled and available to us today. She includes a foreword by Eugene Peterson, author of The Message, and chapter-by-chapter questions for group discussion or personal reflection. This book is an invaluable map for those who are on the journey of psychological healing and spiritual formationand for those who guide them. The most distinctive thing about Dr. Daviss account of her work is that in weaving this tapestry using the threads of story and poetry and psychology, she does her work on a loom constructed from the parallel stories of the exodus of the Hebrews and the death and resurrection of Jesus. Reading Something Rich and Strange puts us in the unhurried and gentle company of a friend. Eugene Peterson, author and professor emeritus of spiritual theology, Regent College, British Columbia I have recognized how great an impact reading this book has had on me, and I believe this response is possible for anyone who would be willing to read Daviss book and allow it to read them as well. There is definitely a revealing process that takes place in the reader as they make connections to the correlating realities of their own journey out of slavery and into freedom, rather, wholeness. Hefti Brunhold, seminary student, Fuller Seminary, Northern California

Beaches are places of contact, play, confrontation and friction: first comers always arrive on a beach. After Europeans moved into the Antipodes, the coast was the first frontier to be defined. Flinders' circumnavigation in 1802 had mapped 'Australia', revealing the land as 'girt by sea', as the national anthem continues to remind us. All kinds of ideas about the coast, beaches, sea changes, holiday places and islands swirl and eddy in this unique collection of writing.

In the first major YA steampunk anthology, fourteen top storytellers push the genre's mix of sci-fi, fantasy, history, and adventure in fascinating new directions. Imagine an alternate universe where romance and technology reign. Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and re-craft a world of automatons, clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that never were. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, utopian revolutionaries, and intrepid orphans solve crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships. Here, fourteen masters of speculative fiction, including two graphic storytellers, embrace the genre's established themes and refashion them in surprising ways and settings as diverse as Appalachia, ancient Rome, future Australia, and alternate California. Visionaries Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant have invited all-new explorations and expansions, taking a genre already rich, strange, and inventive in the extreme and challenging contributors to remake it from the ground up. The result is an anthology that defies its genre even as it defines it.

Paperback reprint of a book depicting the oddly brilliant relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick, two of Hollywood's most legendary filmmakers.

One of cinema's greatest directors, a virtuoso visual artist, and a genius of the suspense genre, Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) is universally known for such masterpieces as Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds. John Russell Taylor, a distinguished film critic and friend of Hitchcock's, enjoyed his full cooperation. Based on numerous interviews, with photos from the private family albums, and an in-depth study of the making of his last film, this biography of the director is as intriguing, revealing, perverse, and entertaining as any Hitchcock classic.