Download or read book American Audacity written by William Giraldi and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most gifted literary essayists of his generation defends stylistic boldness and intellectual daring in American letters. Over the last decade William Giraldi has established himself as a charismatic and uncompromising literary essayist, “a literature-besotted Midas of prose” (Cynthia Ozick). Now, American Audacity gathers a selection of his most powerful considerations of American writers and themes—a “gorgeous fury of language and sensibility” (Walter Kirn)—including an introductory call to arms for twenty-first-century American literature, and a new appreciation of James Baldwin’s genius for nonfiction. With potent insights into the storied tradition of American letters, and written with a “commitment to the dynamism and dimensions of language,” American Audacity considers giants from the past (Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Harper Lee, Denis Johnson), some of our most well-known living critics and novelists (Harold Bloom, Stanley Fish, Katie Roiphe, Cormac McCarthy, Allan Gurganus, Elizabeth Spencer), as well as those cultural-literary themes that have concerned Giraldi as an American novelist (bestsellers, the “problem” of Catholic fiction, the art of hate mail, and his viral essay on bibliophilia). Demanding that literature be audacious, and urgent in its convictions, American Audacity is itself an act of intellectual daring, a compendium shot through with Giraldi’s “emboldened and emboldening critical voice” (Sven Birkerts). At a time when literature is threatened by ceaseless electronic bombardment, Giraldi argues that literature “must do what literature has always done: facilitate those silent spaces, remain steadfastly itself in its employment of slowness, interiority, grace, and in its marshaling of aesthetic sophistication and complexity.” American Audacity is ultimately an assertion of intelligence and discernment from a maker of “perfectly paced prose” (The New Yorker), a book that reaffirms the pleasure and wisdom of the deepest literary values.
Download or read book American Audacity In Defense of Literary Daring written by William Giraldi and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most gifted literary essayists of his generation defends stylistic boldness and intellectual daring in American letters. Over the last decade William Giraldi has established himself as a charismatic and uncompromising literary essayist, “a literature-besotted Midas of prose” (Cynthia Ozick). Now, American Audacity gathers a selection of his most powerful considerations of American writers and themes—a “gorgeous fury of language and sensibility” (Walter Kirn)—including an introductory call to arms for twenty-first-century American literature, and a new appreciation of James Baldwin’s genius for nonfiction. With potent insights into the storied tradition of American letters, and written with a “commitment to the dynamism and dimensions of language,” American Audacity considers giants from the past (Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Harper Lee, Denis Johnson), some of our most well-known living critics and novelists (Harold Bloom, Stanley Fish, Katie Roiphe, Cormac McCarthy, Allan Gurganus, Elizabeth Spencer), as well as those cultural-literary themes that have concerned Giraldi as an American novelist (bestsellers, the “problem” of Catholic fiction, the art of hate mail, and his viral essay on bibliophilia). Demanding that literature be audacious, and urgent in its convictions, American Audacity is itself an act of intellectual daring, a compendium shot through with Giraldi’s “emboldened and emboldening critical voice” (Sven Birkerts). At a time when literature is threatened by ceaseless electronic bombardment, Giraldi argues that literature “must do what literature has always done: facilitate those silent spaces, remain steadfastly itself in its employment of slowness, interiority, grace, and in its marshaling of aesthetic sophistication and complexity.” American Audacity is ultimately an assertion of intelligence and discernment from a maker of “perfectly paced prose” (The New Yorker), a book that reaffirms the pleasure and wisdom of the deepest literary values.
Download or read book Preachers Dare written by Bishop William H. Willimon and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preachers Dare is adapted from Will Willimon’s Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale and is inspired by a quote from the great theologian Karl Barth. In a world in which sermons too often become hackneyed conventional wisdom or tame common sense, preachers dare to speak about the God who speaks to us as Jesus Christ. Willimon draws upon his decades of preaching, as well as his many books on the practice of homiletics, to present a bold theology of preaching. This work emphasizes preaching as a distinctively theological endeavor that begins with and is enabled by God. God speaks, preachers dare to speak the speech of God, and the church dares to listen. By moving from the biblical text to the contemporary context, preachers dare to speak up for God so that God might speak today. With fresh biblical insights, creativity and pointed humor, Willimon gives today’s preachers and congregations encouragement to speak with the God who has so graciously and effusively spoken to us.
Download or read book The Abingdon Preaching Annual 2022 written by Charley Reeb and published by Abingdon Press. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The local pastor’s go-to resource for weekly sermon and worship planning. Each week’s entry consists of two pages, face-to-face. The pages include: 1. Preaching Themes -Fleshed out with brief, pithy nuggets of thought, idea jump-starters, or questions •These are designed to spur the preacher’s imagination and sermon development process •They will offer fresh, intriguing ideas •They will point the reader/preacher in a good direction; the reader takes it from there 2. Secondary or Parallel Themes -2 or 3 themes or streams of thought that are related to but separate from the primary theme offered. These might arise from different parts of the lectionary text. This may also include questions, or alternative ways of thinking about the primary theme. 3. Worship Helps •Gathering Prayer •Collect, Pastoral Prayer, Congregational Prayer, Responsive Reading, or some other liturgical element •Closing Prayer or Benediction Homiletical Topic Essays (3) These 700-word essays cover a variety of current and critical topics for the preacher. Each essay focuses on one particular topic. Topics could include the practice of preaching, sermon writing, current issues for the preacher, emerging trends in preaching, and emerging ideas or cultural trends that are important for the church and preacher. Essays are contributed by leading homileticians. Sermon Series Ideas This section will briefly outline and describe ideas for unique sermon series based on lectionary readings. Most if not all of these will come from non-NT texts, helping preachers to include a wider range of scripture in their preaching. (Many pastors preach primarily from NT passages almost exclusively.)
Download or read book I Want You to Shut the F ck Up written by D.L. Hughley and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-08-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: D.L. Hughley calls it like he sees it, discussing everything from dating to former president Barack Obama with sharp, thoughtful commentary “The best book since The Hunger Games. First he was a King of Comedy; now he’s the king of comedy authors.”—Chris Rock The American dream is in dire need of a wake-up call. A f*cked up society is like an addict: if you are in denial, then things are going to keep getting worse until you hit bottom. According to D. L. Hughley, that's the direction in which America is headed. In I Want You to Shut the F*ck Up, D.L. explains how we've become a nation of fat sissies playing Chicken Little, but in reverse: The sky is falling, but we're supposed to act like everything's fine. D.L. just points out the sobering facts: there is no standard of living by which we are the best. In terms of life expectancy, we're 36th—tied with Cuba; in terms of literacy, we're 20th—behind Kazakhstan. Things are bad now and they're only going to get worse. Unless, of course, you sit down, shut the f*ck up, and listen to what D. L. Hughley has to say. I Want You to Shut the F*ck Up is a slap to the political senses, a much needed ass-kicking of the American sense of entitlement. In these pages, D. L. Hughley calls it like he sees it, offering his hilarious yet insightful thoughts on: • Our supposedly post-racial society • The similarities between America the superpower and the drunk idiot at the bar • Why apologizing is not the answer to controversy, especially when you meant what you said • Why civil rights leaders are largely to blame for black people not being represented on television • And more!
Download or read book American Audacity written by Christopher Benfey and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2010-02-22 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the foremost critics in contemporary American letters, Christopher Benfey has long been known for his brilliant and incisive essays. Appearing in such publications as the New York Review of Books, the New Republic, and the Times Literary Supplement, Benfey's writings have helped us reimagine the American literary canon. In American Audacity, Benfey gathers his finest writings on eminent American authors (including Emerson, Dickinson, Whitman, Millay, Faulkner, Frost, and Welty), bringing to his subjects---as the New York Times Book Review has said of his earlier work---"a scholar's thoroughness, a critic's astuteness and a storyteller's sense of drama." Although Benfey's interests range from art to literature to social history, this collection focuses on particular American writers and the various ways in which an American identity and culture inform their work. Broken into three sections, "Northerners,""Southerners," and "The Union Reconsidered," American Audacity explores a variety of canonical works, old (Emerson, Dickinson, Millay, Whitman), modern (Faulkner, Dos Passos), and more contemporary (Gary Snyder, E. L. Doctorow). Christopher Benfey is the author of numerous highly regarded books, including Emily Dickinson: Lives of a Poet; The Double Life of Stephen Crane; Degas in New Orleans: Encounters in the Creole World of Kate Chopin and George Washington Cable; and, most recently, The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan. Benfey's poems have appeared in the Paris Review, Pequod, and Ploughshares. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. Currently he is Mellon Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College. "In its vigorous and original criticism of American writers, Christopher Benfey's American Audacity displays its own audacities on every page." ---William H. Pritchard
Download or read book Fragments of a Mortal Mind written by Donald Anderson and published by University of Nevada Press. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are where we’ve been and what we’ve read, aren’t we? Where else do we get the experience we need to evocatively live? At once a memoir, a reading journal, and a novel, Fragments of a Mortal Mind is a daring, contemporary commonplace book. Donald Anderson, critically acclaimed author of Gathering Noise from My Life and Below Freezing, shows us how the disparate elements of our lives collect to construct our deepest selves and help us to make sense of it all. Anderson layers his personal experiences and reflections with those of others who have wrestled with inner and outer social, cultural, and political memories that are not as accurate as history might suggest but that each of us believe nonetheless. He challenges the reader’s sense of memory and fact, downplaying the latter in explaining how each of us crafts our own personal histories. As Anderson weaves his voice among numerous other voices and ideas that rest upon other ideas, we are faced with larger issues of human existence: war, memory, trauma, mortality, religion, fear, joy, ugliness, and occasional beauty. What we have here is a meditation on living in America. We are shown how the world we consume becomes us as we metabolize it. How we, as humans, through our own fragments of memories, influences, and experiences become our true selves. By charting fragments of thoughts over a lifetime, Anderson exposes a way of thinking and perceiving the world that is refreshingly intuitive and desperately needed. Fragments of a Mortal Mind is a powerful masterpiece that closely resembles our lived experiences and is a vivid reflection of our time.
Download or read book Buzz Books 2018 Spring Summer written by and published by Publishers Lunch. This book was released on 2018-01-08 with total page 808 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our biannual Buzz Books captures all the excitement of the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute and takes it much further. Start off a year of new reading discoveries with substantial excerpts from 40 talked about Buzz Books due to be published in the months ahead. Be among the first to get a taste of new fiction from major bestselling authors including Allison Pearson’s follow up to I Don’t Know How She Does It and beloved romance writer Kristan Higgins’ work of general fiction, Good Luck with That. Samples from award-winning literary authors include Chris Offutt, with his first novel in 20 years, Country Dark; Ottessa Moshfegh with My Year of Rest and Relaxation; bestselling nonfiction author Sheila Heti’s Motherhood, and Peter Swanson’s thriller All the Beautiful Lies. The new Buzz Books shines a light on 11 promising debuts. Bestselling nonfiction author Aimee Molloy’s forthcoming novel The Perfect Mother already has been optioned for film by Kerry Washington. Accomplished comic book writer Charles Soule writes a novel that is part comedy, part thriller, The Oracle Year. Other featured debut authors include Luke Allnutt, Alice Feeney, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, and Zoje Stage. Our fascinating nonfiction section is filled with memoir this time around. In The Fox Hunt, Mohammed Al Samawi describes fighting in the Yemeni Civil War before fleeing to the United States while Tessa Fontaine’s The Electric Woman is about running away to join the circus. Regular readers know that each Buzz Books collection is filled with early looks at titles that will go on to top the bestseller lists and critics' "best of the year" lists. And our comprehensive seasonal preview starts the book off with a curated overview of hundreds of notable books on the way later this year. For still more great previews, check out our separate Buzz Books 2018: Young Adult Spring/Summer as well. For complete download links, lists and more, just visit buzz.publishersmarketplace.com.
Download or read book The Poets Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer written by Kevin Larimer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive source of information, insight, and advice for creative writers, from the nation’s largest and most trusted organization for writers, Poets & Writers. For half a century, writers at every stage of their careers have turned to the literary nonprofit organization Poets & Writers and its award-winning magazine for resources to foster their professional development, from writing prompts and tips on technique to informative interviews with published authors, literary agents, and editors. But never before has Poets & Writers marshaled its fifty years’ worth of knowledge to create an authoritative guide for writers that answers every imaginable question about craft and career—until now. Here is the writing bible for authors of all genres and forms, covering topics such as how to: -Harness your imagination and jump-start your creativity -Develop your work from initial idea to final draft -Find a supportive and inspiring writing community to sustain your career -Find the best MFA program for you -Publish your work in literary magazines and develop a platform -Research writing contests and other opportunities to support your writing life -Decide between traditional publishing and self-publishing -Find the right literary agent -Anticipate what agents look for in queries and proposals -Work successfully with an editor and your publishing team -Market yourself and your work in a digital world -Approach financial planning and taxes as a writer -And much more Written by Kevin Larimer and Mary Gannon, the two most recent editors of Poets & Writers Magazine, this book brings an unrivaled understanding of the areas in which writers seek guidance and support. Filled with insider information like sample query letters, pitch letters, lists of resources, and worksheets for calculating freelance rates, tracking submissions, and managing your taxes, the guide does more than demystify the writing life—it also provides an array of powerful tools for building a sustainable career as a writer. In addition to the wealth of insights into creativity, publishing, and promotion are first-person essays from bestselling authors, including George Saunders, Christina Baker Kline, and Ocean Vuong, as well as reading lists from award-winning writers such as Anthony Doerr, Cheryl Strayed, and Natalie Diaz. Here, at last, is the ultimate comprehensive resource that belongs on every writer’s desk.
Download or read book The Hero s Body A Memoir written by William Giraldi and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir of motorcycles and muscles, of obsession and grief, and of a young man who learned how to stay alive through literature. At just forty-seven years old, William Giraldi’s father was killed in a horrific motorcycle crash while racing on a country road. This tragedy, which forever altered the young Giraldi and devastated his family, provides the pulse for The Hero’s Body. In the tradition of Andre Dubus III’s Townie, this is a deep-seeing investigation into two generations of men from the working-class town of Manville, New Jersey, including Giraldi’s own forays into obsessive bodybuilding as a teenager desperate to be worthy of his family’s pitiless, exacting codes of manhood. Lauded by The New Yorker for his “unrelenting, perfectly paced prose,” Giraldi writes here with daring, searing honesty about the fragility and might of the American male. An unflinching memoir of luminous sorrow, a son’s tale of a lost father and the ancient family strictures of extreme masculinity, The Hero’s Body is a work of lasting beauty by one of our most fearless writers.
Download or read book Approaches to Teaching the Works of Flannery O Connor written by Robert Donahoo and published by Modern Language Association. This book was released on 2019-09-01 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Known for her violent, startling stories that culminate in moments of grace, Flannery O'Connor depicted the postwar segregated South from a unique perspective. This volume proposes strategies for introducing students to her Roman Catholic aesthetic, which draws on concepts such as incarnation and original sin, and offers alternative contexts for reading her work. Part 1, "Materials," describes resources that provide a grounding in O'Connor's work and life. The essays in part 2, "Approaches," discuss her beliefs about writing and her distinctive approach to fiction and religion; introduce fresh perspectives, including those of race, class, gender, and interdisciplinary approaches; highlight her craft as a creative writer; and suggest pairings of her works with other texts. Alice Walker's short story "Convergence" is included as an appendix.
Download or read book Hold the Dark A Novel written by William Giraldi and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-09-08 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now a Netflix original film starring Alexander Skarsgård, Riley Keough, and Jeffrey Wright At the edge of civilization, nature and evil collide in what “stands out as one of the decade’s best books of its kind” (Alan Cheuse, Boston Globe). Written with “force and precision and grace” (John Wilwol, New York Times Book Review) Hold the Dark is a “taut and unforgettable journey into the heart of darkness” (Dennis Lehane). At the start of another pitiless winter, wolves have taken three children from the remote Alaskan village of Keelut, including the six-year-old son of Medora and Vernon Slone. Wolf expert Russell Core is called in to investigate these killings and discovers an unholy truth harbored by Medora before she disappears. When her husband returns home to discover his boy dead and his wife missing, he begins a maniacal pursuit that cuts a bloody swath across the frozen landscape. With the help of a local police detective, Core attempts to find Medora before her husband does, setting in motion a deadly chain of events in this “chilling, mysterious, and completely engaging novel” (Tim O’Brien) that marks the arrival of a major American writer.
Download or read book Audacity written by Jonathan Chait and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-01-17 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An essential starting point for those assessing the Obama presidency.” —Washington Monthly Two presidencies later, the time has never been better to revisit the legacy of Barack Obama. In Audacity, New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait makes the unassailable case that, in the eyes of history, Obama will be viewed as one of America’s best and most accomplished presidents. Over the course of eight years, Barack Obama has amassed an array of outstanding achievements. His administration saved the American economy from collapse, expanded health insurance to millions who previously could not afford it, negotiated an historic nuclear deal with Iran, helped craft a groundbreaking international climate accord, reined in Wall Street and crafted a new vision of racial progress. He has done all of this despite a left that frequently disdained him as a sellout, and a hysterical right that did everything possible to destroy his agenda even when they agreed with what he was doing. Now, as the page turns to our next Commander in Chief, Jonathan Chait, acclaimed as one of the most incisive and meticulous political commentators in America, digs deep into Obama’s record on major policy fronts—economics, the environment, domestic reform, health care, race, foreign policy, and civil rights—to demonstrate why history will judge our forty-fourth president as among the greatest in history. Audacity does not shy away from Obama’s failures, most notably in foreign policy. Yet Chait convincingly shows that President Obama has accomplished what candidate Obama said he would, despite overwhelming opposition—and that the hopes of those who voted for him have not been dashed despite the smokescreen of extremist propaganda and the limits of short-term perspective.
Download or read book Trenton Makes written by Tadzio Koelb and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1946, in the hardscrabble industrial city of Trenton, New Jersey, a woman kills her army veteran husband in a domestic brawl—and then assumes his identity. As Abe Kunstler, he secures a factory job, buys a car, and successfully woos a young woman with whom he makes a home. But for Abe, this is not enough: to complete his transformation, he needs a son. Fast-forward to 1971, and the certainties of midcentury triumphalism are a distant, bitter memory, Trenton’s heyday as a factory town is long past, and the family life Abe has so carefully constructed is crumbling under the intolerable pressures of his long ruse. Written in brilliantly stylized prose, Trenton Makes is the indelibly told story of a woman determined to carve out her share of the American Dream.
Download or read book Last in Their Class written by James Robbins and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2017-03-21 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today’s Goat, the celebrated West Point cadet finishing at the bottom of his class, carries on a long and storied tradition. George Custer’s contemporaries at the Academy believed that the same spirit of adventure that led him to “blow post” at night to carouse at local taverns also motivated his dramatic cavalry attacks in the Civil War and afterwards. And the same willingness to stoically accept punishment for his hijinks at the Academy also sent George Pickett marching into the teeth of the Union guns at Gettysburg. The story James S. Robbins tells goes from the beginnings of West Point through the carnage of the Civil War to the grassy bluffs over the Little Big Horn. The Goats he profiles tell us much about the soul of the American solider, his daring, imagination and desire to prove himself against high odds.
Download or read book The Death of the Critic written by Ronan McDonald and published by Continuum. This book was released on 2007 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: T.S. Eliot maintained a healthy critical culture is vital to the survival of civilization and it is this thesis that Dr McDonald argues forcefully- referring as much to the literary and cultural climate of the USA as to that of the UK. The point of litera
Download or read book Against Decolonisation written by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò and published by Hurst Publishers. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Decolonisation has lost its way. Originally a struggle to escape the West’s direct political and economic control, it has become a catch-all idea, often for performing ‘morality’ or ‘authenticity’; it suffocates African thought and denies African agency. Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò fiercely rejects the indiscriminate application of ‘decolonisation’ to everything from literature, language and philosophy to sociology, psychology and medicine. He argues that the decolonisation industry, obsessed with cataloguing wrongs, is seriously harming scholarship on and in Africa. He finds ‘decolonisation’ of culture intellectually unsound and wholly unrealistic, conflating modernity with coloniality, and groundlessly advocating an open-ended undoing of global society’s foundations. Worst of all, today’s movement attacks its own cause: ‘decolonisers’ themselves are disregarding, infantilising and imposing values on contemporary African thinkers. This powerful, much-needed intervention questions whether today’s ‘decolonisation’ truly serves African empowerment. Táíwò’s is a bold challenge to respect African intellectuals as innovative adaptors, appropriators and synthesisers of ideas they have always seen as universally relevant.
