The Salon Com Reader S Guide To Contemporary Authors

"An all-original, A-to-Z guide to 225 of the most fascinating writers of our time, penned by an international cast of talented young critics and reviewers."--Cover.

Enchanted by Narnia's fantastic world as a child, prominent critic Laura Miller returns to the series as an adult to uncover the source of these small books' mysterious power by looking at their creator, Clive Staples Lewis. What she discovers is not the familiar, idealized image of the author, but a more interesting and ambiguous truth: Lewis's tragic and troubled childhood, his unconventional love life, and his intense but ultimately doomed friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien. Finally reclaiming Narnia "for the rest of us," Miller casts the Chronicles as a profoundly literary creation, and the portal to a lifelong adventure in books, art, and the imagination.

If you have ever stared a page that remains stubbornly blank; if you have ever wondered why writers write, or whether good writers are born or made; if you are a novelist, playwright, poet, or journalist, or simply delight in the written word, The Writer's Quotebook is for you. Whether you keep it in your office, on your coffee table, next to your keyboard or your bed, this rich compendium of over one thousand quotations will inspire, invigorate, and illuminate the often challenging, sometimes humorous, but always fascinating task of those who bring words to life. From William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway to Doris Lessing and Joyce Carol Oates, more than five hundred published writers put pen to paper on what the literary life is all about. Selections come from seasoned professionals as well as those just establishing their voice, and they represent a variety of nationalities and genres. The book is divided into three sections. The first part is devoted to the creative process, including thoughts on where writers get their ideas, the role of inspiration, what kind of people write, and where talent comes from. In part two, the subject shifts to writing as a craft. Here, authors ponder the creation of protagonists and points of view, the writing of dialogue, setting and description, creating plots, and the anatomy of style. The final third of the book deals with the challenges and rewards that come with the writing life. Subjects in this section include the economic realities of writing, classes, conferences, and workshops, dealing with rejection and bad reviews, writing habits and rituals, despair, alcohol, suicide, and fame. Articulated with elegant metaphor, in straightforward prose, or with wry wit, the carefully selected and thoughtfully organized quotations come together to form a narrative that entertains, informs, and in the case of aspiring writers, shows the way to better writing.

It happens to us all: we think we’ve settled into an identity, a self, and then out of nowhere and with great force, the traces of our parents appear to us, in us—in mirrors, in gestures, in reaction and reactivity, at weddings and funerals, and in troubled thoughts that crouch in dark corners of our minds. In this masterful collection of new essays, the apple looks at the tree. Twenty-five writers deftly explore a trait they’ve inherited from a parent, reflecting on how it affects the lives they lead today—how it shifts their relationship to that parent (sometimes posthumously) and to their sense of self. Apple, Tree’s all-star lineup of writers brings eloquence, integrity, and humor to topics such as arrogance, obsession, psychics, grudges, table manners, luck, and laundry. Contributors include Laura van den Berg, S. Bear Bergman, John Freeman, Jane Hamilton, Mat Johnson, Daniel Mendelsohn, Kyoko Mori, Ann Patchett, and Sallie Tisdale, among others. Together, their pieces form a prismatic meditation on how we make fresh sense of ourselves and our parents when we see the pieces of them that live on in us.

A haunting and psychologically driven collection from Shirley Jackson that includes her best-known story "The Lottery" At last, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" enters Penguin Classics, sixty-five years after it shocked America audiences and elicited the most responses of any piece in New Yorker history. In her gothic visions of small-town America, Jackson, the author of such masterworks as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, turns an ordinary world into a supernatural nightmare. This eclectic collection goes beyond her horror writing, revealing the full spectrum of her literary genius. In addition to Come Along with Me, Jackson's unfinished novel about the quirky inner life of a lonely widow, it features sixteen short stories and three lectures she delivered during her last years. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The greatest haunted house story ever written, the inspiration for a 10-part Netflix series directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Michiel Huisman, Carla Gugino, and Timothy Hutton First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Today's web sites and intranets are larger, more valuable, and more complex than ever before, and their users are busier and less forgiving. Designers, information architects, and web site managers are required to juggle vast amounts of information, frequent changes, new technologies, and corporate politics, making some web sites look like a fast-growing but poorly planned city -roads everywhere, but impossible to navigate. A well-planned information architecture has never been as essential as it is now. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Second Edition, shows how to use both aesthetics and mechanics to create distinctive, cohesive web sites that work. Most books on web development concentrate either on the graphics or on the technical issues of a site. This book focuses on the framework that holds the two together. By applying the principles outlined in this completely updated classic, you'll build scalable and maintainable web sites that are easier to navigate and more appealing to your users. Using examples and case studies, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web will help you: Develop a strong, cohesive vision for your site that makes it both distinctive and usable; Organize your site's hierarchy in ways that are meaningful to its users and that minimize the need to re-engineer the site; Create navigation systems that allow users to move through the site without getting lost or frustrated; Accurately label your site's content; Organize your site in a way that supports both searching for specific items and casual browsing; Configure search systems so that users' queries actually retrieve meaningful results; Manage the process of developing an information architecture, from selling the concept to research and conceptual design to planning and production. "The world will be a better place when web designers read this book. It's smart, funny, and artfully distills years of the authors' bard-won experience. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web tackles political/organizational challenges as well as content, structure, and user interface. This is not design-lite, but a deep treatment of fundamental issues of information presentation that advances the state of the art. It's light years ahead of the competition." -Bonnie Nardi, Co-author of Information Ecologies- Using Technology with Heart