Download or read book The Bluesiana Snake Festival written by Aubrey Bart and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2010-04-20 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Probably many a road scholar would testify this place makes good leavin' and better comin' back to . . . Place puts a hold on your soul, man, these streets call you like an old song . . ." So starts The Bluesiana Snake Festival as Hidden Dave Crossway, a New Orleans street sweeper, celebrates the city in its pre–Katrina skin. With the night of the "snake moon" as the backdrop, we experience the lives, languages, and rhythms of the French Quarter, an unexpected urban idyll. Through a blend of voices--Big Jim Bullshit, Shushubaby, and Brooklyn Bob, to name a few--the musical voice of New Orleans is revealed in its varied dialects, grooves reminiscent of ragtime, jazz, and blues. The result is a look into who these folks are, their ways and beliefs, their senses of truth, and of existence itself. A novel about the joy and beauty of life in the depths, the momentum and narrative heart isn't driven by a plot — it's about the trance.
Download or read book The New Orleans of Fiction written by James A. Kaser and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2014-07-29 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The importance of New Orleans in American culture has made the city's place in the American imagination a crucial topic for literary scholars and cultural historians. While databases of bibliographical information on New Orleans-centered fiction are available, they are of little use to scholars researching works written before the 1980s. In The New Orleans of Fiction: A Research Guide, James A. Kaser provides detailed synopses for more than 500 works of fiction significantly set in New Orleans and published between 1836 and 1980. The synopses include plot summaries, names of major characters, and an indication of physical settings. An appendix provides bibliographical information for works dating from 1981 well into the 21st century, while a biographical section provides basic information about the authors, some of whom are obscure and would be difficult to find in other sources. Written to assist researchers in locating works of fiction for analysis, the plot summaries highlight ways in which the works touch on major aspects of social history and cultural studies (i.e., class, ethnicity, gender, immigrant experience, and race). The book is also a useful reader advisory tool for librarians and readers who want to identify materials for leisure reading, particularly since genre, juvenile, and young adult fiction—as well as literary fiction—are included.
Download or read book The Hierophant of 100th Street written by Cullen Dorn and published by Frog Books. This book was released on 2008-10-07 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ***WINNER – IPPY Bronze Book Award – Best Regional Fiction (2009) ***WINNER – BookBundlz Best Book (2009-2010 Winter Award) The Hierophant of 100th Street is a remarkable, unusual book: a metaphysical novel set in a violent world of slums, gangs, and prisons. Drawing on the author's experience of growing up in the infamous East Harlem neighborhood of 100th Street in the 1960s, the story follows 17-year-old Adam Kadman and his 9-year-old brother John through their respective initiations into the realities of street life while simultaneously introducing real-life characters who dwell in the life of the spirit. Veiled in the guise of fiction, most of what appears in the book is actually a truthful account of the author's real-life experience. Like the author, the young Adam also ventures out from the slums of New York to discover the meaning of life amid the horrors of existence, and finds romance, mysticism, and purpose. Seeking to extricate himself from 100th Street, Adam is drafted into the army and later travels to Egypt, where in a harsh world of theocrats and misogynists he falls in love with a young Arab woman. Out of his element, he attacks the social structure—and ends up running for his life. He returns back to the old neighborhood only to find it changed … destroyed by an invasion of drugs, betrayal, and murder. By chance he encounters a mysterious man, Clifford Bias (a renowned twentieth-century clairvoyant), and is taken under the wing of the "magus." Discovering his own psychic abilities, Adam enters his mentor's secret society and a world of mysticism and love. Tapping the same rich spiritual vein as The Da Vinci Code and The Celestine Prophecy and written in the stark language of the streets, this daring, cinematic novel explores the ancient truths and metaphysical mysteries hidden in the fabric of everyday life.
Download or read book The Bluesiana Snake Festival written by Aubrey Bart and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2010-03-30 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Probably many a road scholar would testify this place makes good leavin' and better comin' back to . . . Place puts a hold on your soul, man, these streets call you like an old song . . ." So starts The Bluesiana Snake Festival as Hidden Dave Crossway, a New Orleans street sweeper, celebrates the city in its pre–Katrina skin. With the night of the "snake moon" as the backdrop, we experience the lives, languages, and rhythms of the French Quarter, an unexpected urban idyll. Through a blend of voices--Big Jim Bullshit, Shushubaby, and Brooklyn Bob, to name a few--the musical voice of New Orleans is revealed in its varied dialects, grooves reminiscent of ragtime, jazz, and blues. The result is a look into who these folks are, their ways and beliefs, their senses of truth, and of existence itself. A novel about the joy and beauty of life in the depths, the momentum and narrative heart isn't driven by a plot — it's about the trance.
Download or read book At the End of the Century written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Multilayered, subtle, insightful short stories from the inimitable Booker Prize–winning author, with an introduction by Anita Desai Nobody has written so powerfully of the relationship between and within India and the Western middle classes than Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. In this selection of stories, chosen by her surviving family, her ability to tenderly and humorously view the situations faced by three (sometimes interacting) cultures—European, post–Independence Indian, and American—is never more acute. In “A Course of English Studies,” a young woman arrives at Oxford from India and struggles to adapt, not only to the sad, stoic object of her infatuation, but also to a country that seems so resistant to passion and color. In the wrenching “Expiation,” the blind, unconditional love of a cloth shop owner for his wastrel younger brother exposes the tragic beauty and foolishness of human compassion and faith. The wry and triumphant “Pagans” brings us middle–aged sisters Brigitte and Frankie in Los Angeles, who discover a youthful sexuality in the company of the languid and handsome young Indian, Shoki. This collection also includes Jhabvala’s last story, “The Judge’s Will,” which appeared in The New Yorker in 2013 after her death. The profound inner experience of both men and women is at the center of Jhabvala’s writing: she rivals Jane Austen with her impeccable powers of observation. With an introduction by her friend, the writer Anita Desai, At the End of the Century celebrates a writer’s astonishing lifetime gift for language, and leaves us with no doubt of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s unique place in modern literature. "The stories—all of them elegantly plotted and unsentimental, with an addictive, told–over–tea quality—are largely character studies of people isolated, often tragically, by custom or self–delusion . . . Vivid, unsparing portraits are leavened with the kind of humanizing moments that evoke a total world within their compression."—Megan O’Grady, The New York Times Book Review
Download or read book Tell Me written by Mary Robison and published by Counterpoint Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiction
Download or read book Uncanny Valley written by Lawrence Weschler and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shuttling between cultural comedies and political tragedies, Lawrence Weschler's articles have throughout his long career intrigued readers with his unique insight into everything he examines, from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Uncanny Valley continues the page–turning conversation as Weschler collects the best of his narrative nonfiction from the past fifteen years. The title piece surveys the hapless efforts of digital animators to fashion a credible human face, the endlessly elusive gold standard of the profession. Other highlights include profiles of novelist Mark Salzman, as he wrestles with a hilariously harrowing bout of writer's block; the legendary film and sound editor Walter Murch, as he is forced to revisit his work on Apocalypse Now in the context of the more recent Iraqi war film Jarhead; and the artist Vincent Desiderio, as he labors over an epic canvas portraying no less than a dozen sleeping figures. With his signature style and endless ability to wonder, Weschler proves yet again that the "world is strange, beautiful, and connected" (The Globe and Mail). Uncanny Valley demonstrates his matchless ability to analyze the marvels he finds in places and people and offers us a new, sublime way of seeing the world.
Download or read book Little Owl Lost written by Chris Haughton and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2013-08-27 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Friendly forest animals help a newborn owl find his mother.
Download or read book In the Not Quite Dark written by Dana Johnson and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2016-08-01 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following her prize–winning collection Break Any Woman Down, Dana Johnson returns with a collection of bold stories set mostly in downtown Los Angeles that examine large issues –love, class, race – and how they influence and define our most intimate moments. In "The Liberace Museum," a mixed–race couple leave the South toward the destination of Vegas, crossing miles of road and history to the promised land of consumption; in "Rogues," a young man on break from college lands in his brother's Inland Empire neighborhood during a rash of unexplained robberies; in "She Deserves Everything She Gets," a woman listens to the strict advice given to her spoiled niece about going away to college, reflecting on her own experience and the night she lost her best friend; and in the collection's title story, a man setting down roots in downtown L.A. is haunted by the specter of both gentrification and a young female tourist, whose body was found in the water tower of a neighboring building. With deep insight into character, intimate relationships, and the modern search for personal freedom, In the Not Quite Dark is powerful new work that feels both urgent and timeless.
Download or read book The Teachings of Don B written by Donald Barthelme and published by Counterpoint LLC. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This overflowing volume of previously uncollected--and utterly uncategorizable--writings by the late Donald Barthelme is a time bomb disguised as a literary last testament. Barthelme gives us an imaginary episode of BATMAN hilariously slowed down to soap-opera speed; an account of a baseball game played by T.S. Eliot and Willem "Big Bill" de Kooning; and an outlandishly illustrated chronicle of a scientific expedition in quest of God. 109 illustrations throughout.
Download or read book Never Breathe a Word written by Caroline Blackwood and published by Counterpoint LLC. This book was released on 2010 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collects short stories spanning the author's career, including the tale of a beauty parlor owner upset by an employee's concentration camp tattoo and a birth mother who shares a horrible meal with her son's wealthy adopted mother.
Download or read book The Lariat written by Jaime De Angulo and published by Counterpoint. This book was released on 2009-03-24 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lariat tells the story of Fray Luis, a Franciscan monk, who comes to Northern California to convert the Native Americans to Christianity. This text includes other stories as well.
Download or read book Living Blues written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Under a Hoodoo Moon written by Dr. John and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1995-03-15 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This autobiography of legendary New Orleans piano man Dr. John--"the hippest, fonkiest cat to come down the musical turnpike" (Library Journal)--is one of the most original, colorful, and acclaimed music books ever. Photos.
Download or read book The Deceptions written by Jill Bialosky and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An explosive tale of art and myth, desire and betrayal, from New York Times best-selling author Jill Bialosky "Bialosky urgently captures the moment in an adult's life when reflection leads to regret, and a desire to recapture the promise of one's youth becomes a kind of desperation. A vulnerable and searching tale of art, myth, and mortality." —Oprah Daily Something terrible has happened and I don’t know what to do. An unnamed narrator’s life is unraveling. Her only child has left home, and her twenty-year marriage is strained. Anticipation about her soon-to-be-released book of poetry looms. She seeks answers to the paradoxes of love, desire, and parenthood among the Greek and Roman gods at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As she passes her days teaching at a boys’ prep school, spending her off-hours sequestered in the museum's austere galleries, she is haunted by memories of a yearlong friendship with a colleague, a fellow poet struggling with his craft. As secret betrayals and deceptions come to light and rage threatens to overwhelm her, the pantheon of gods assume remarkably vivid lives of their own, forcing her to choose between reality and myth in an effort to free herself from the patriarchal constraints of the past and embrace a new vision for her future. The Deceptions is a page-turning and seductively told exploration of female sexuality and ambition as well as a human drama that dares to test the stories we tell ourselves. It is also a brilliant investigation of a life caught between the dueling magnetic poles of privacy and its appropriation in art and literature. Celebrated poet, memoirist, and novelist Jill Bialosky has reached new and daring heights in her boldest work yet.
Download or read book Bluesman written by Andre Dubus III and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2001-02-13 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With House of Sand and Fog, his National Book Award-nominated novel, Andre Dubus III demonstrated his mastery of the complexities of character and desire. In this earlier novel he captures a roiling time in American history and the coming-of-age of a boy who must decide between desire, ambition, and duty. In the summer of 1967, Leo Suther has one more year of high school to finish and a lot more to learn. He's in love with the beautiful Allie Donovan who introduces him to her father, Chick — a construction foreman and avowed Communist. Soon Leo finds himself in the midst of a consuming love affair and an intense testing of his political values. Chick's passionate views challenge Leo's perspective on the escalating Vietnam conflict and on just where he stands in relation to the new people in his life. Throughout his — and the nation's — unforgettable "summer of love," Leo is learning the language of the blues, which seem to speak to the mourning he feels for his dead mother, his occasionally distant father, and the youth which is fast giving way to manhood.
Download or read book The Gutbucket Quest written by Piers Anthony and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2001-05-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Slim, a blues performer from Texas, is on a quest in an alternate magic world, to find a guitar named The Gutbucket.
