A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses

A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses PDF Author: Anne Trubek
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812205812
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
There are many ways to show our devotion to an author besides reading his or her works. Graves make for popular pilgrimage sites, but far more popular are writers' house museums. What is it we hope to accomplish by trekking to the home of a dead author? We may go in search of the point of inspiration, eager to stand on the very spot where our favorite literary characters first came to life—and find ourselves instead in the house where the author himself was conceived, or where she drew her last breath. Perhaps it is a place through which our writer passed only briefly, or maybe it really was a longtime home—now thoroughly remade as a decorator's show-house. In A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses Anne Trubek takes a vexed, often funny, and always thoughtful tour of a goodly number of house museums across the nation. In Key West she visits the shamelessly ersatz shrine to a hard-living Ernest Hemingway, while meditating on his lost Cuban farm and the sterile Idaho house in which he committed suicide. In Hannibal, Missouri, she walks the fuzzy line between fact and fiction, as she visits the home of the young Samuel Clemens—and the purported haunts of Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and Injun' Joe. She hits literary pay-dirt in Concord, Massachusetts, the nineteenth-century mecca that gave home to Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau—and yet could not accommodate a surprisingly complex Louisa May Alcott. She takes us along the trail of residences that Edgar Allan Poe left behind in the wake of his many failures and to the burned-out shell of a California house with which Jack London staked his claim on posterity. In Dayton, Ohio, a charismatic guide brings Paul Laurence Dunbar to compelling life for those few visitors willing to listen; in Cleveland, Trubek finds a moving remembrance of Charles Chesnutt in a house that no longer stands. Why is it that we visit writers' houses? Although admittedly skeptical about the stories these buildings tell us about their former inhabitants, Anne Trubek carries us along as she falls at least a little bit in love with each stop on her itinerary and finds in each some truth about literature, history, and contemporary America.

Milo Imagines the World

Milo Imagines the World PDF Author: Matt de la Peña
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0399549099
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
The team behind the Newbery Medal winner and Caldecott Honor book Last Stop on Market Street and the award-winning New York Times bestseller Carmela Full of Wishes once again delivers a poignant and timely picture book that's sure to become an instant classic. Milo is on a long subway ride with his older sister. To pass the time, he studies the faces around him and makes pictures of their lives. There's the whiskered man with the crossword puzzle; Milo imagines him playing solitaire in a cluttered apartment full of pets. There's the wedding-dressed woman with a little dog peeking out of her handbag; Milo imagines her in a grand cathedral ceremony. And then there's the boy in the suit with the bright white sneakers; Milo imagines him arriving home to a castle with a drawbridge and a butler. But when the boy in the suit gets off on the same stop as Milo--walking the same path, going to the exact same place--Milo realizes that you can't really know anyone just by looking at them.

A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses

A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses PDF Author: Anne Trubek
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812205812
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 175

Get Book Here

Book Description
There are many ways to show our devotion to an author besides reading his or her works. Graves make for popular pilgrimage sites, but far more popular are writers' house museums. What is it we hope to accomplish by trekking to the home of a dead author? We may go in search of the point of inspiration, eager to stand on the very spot where our favorite literary characters first came to life—and find ourselves instead in the house where the author himself was conceived, or where she drew her last breath. Perhaps it is a place through which our writer passed only briefly, or maybe it really was a longtime home—now thoroughly remade as a decorator's show-house. In A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses Anne Trubek takes a vexed, often funny, and always thoughtful tour of a goodly number of house museums across the nation. In Key West she visits the shamelessly ersatz shrine to a hard-living Ernest Hemingway, while meditating on his lost Cuban farm and the sterile Idaho house in which he committed suicide. In Hannibal, Missouri, she walks the fuzzy line between fact and fiction, as she visits the home of the young Samuel Clemens—and the purported haunts of Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and Injun' Joe. She hits literary pay-dirt in Concord, Massachusetts, the nineteenth-century mecca that gave home to Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau—and yet could not accommodate a surprisingly complex Louisa May Alcott. She takes us along the trail of residences that Edgar Allan Poe left behind in the wake of his many failures and to the burned-out shell of a California house with which Jack London staked his claim on posterity. In Dayton, Ohio, a charismatic guide brings Paul Laurence Dunbar to compelling life for those few visitors willing to listen; in Cleveland, Trubek finds a moving remembrance of Charles Chesnutt in a house that no longer stands. Why is it that we visit writers' houses? Although admittedly skeptical about the stories these buildings tell us about their former inhabitants, Anne Trubek carries us along as she falls at least a little bit in love with each stop on her itinerary and finds in each some truth about literature, history, and contemporary America.

The Best Halloween Ever

The Best Halloween Ever PDF Author: Barbara Robinson
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062076949
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
The Herdmans plus Halloween have always spelled disaster. Every year these six kids -- the worst in the history of Woodrow Wilson School, and possibly even the world -- wreak havoc on the whole town. They steal candy, spray-paint kids, and take anything that's not nailed down. Now the mayor has had it. He's decided to cancel Halloween. There won't be any Herdmans to contend with this year, but there won't be any candy, either. And what's Halloween without candy? And without trick-or-treating? The Herdmans manage to turn the worst Halloween ever into the best Halloween ever in this uproarious sequel to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

Mr. Emerson's Wife

Mr. Emerson's Wife PDF Author: Amy Belding Brown
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466809280
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
In this novel about Ralph Waldo Emerson's wife, Lidian, Amy Belding Brown examines the emotional landscape of love and marriage. Living in the shadow of one of the most famous men of her time, Lidian becomes deeply disappointed by marriage, but consigned to public silence by social conventions and concern for her family's reputation. Drawn to the erotic energy and intellect of close family friend Henry David Thoreau, she struggles to negotiate the confusing territory between love and friendship while maintaining her moral authority and inner strength. In the course of the book, she deals with overwhelming social demands, faces devastating personal loss, and discovers the deepest meaning of love. Lidian eventually encounters the truth of her own character and learns that even our faults can lead us to independence.

Horror Noire

Horror Noire PDF Author: Robin R. Means Coleman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136942947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
From King Kong to Candyman, the boundary-pushing genre of the horror film has always been a site for provocative explorations of race in American popular culture. In Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from 1890's to Present, Robin R. Means Coleman traces the history of notable characterizations of blackness in horror cinema, and examines key levels of black participation on screen and behind the camera. She argues that horror offers a representational space for black people to challenge the more negative, or racist, images seen in other media outlets, and to portray greater diversity within the concept of blackness itself. Horror Noire presents a unique social history of blacks in America through changing images in horror films. Throughout the text, the reader is encouraged to unpack the genre’s racialized imagery, as well as the narratives that make up popular culture’s commentary on race. Offering a comprehensive chronological survey of the genre, this book addresses a full range of black horror films, including mainstream Hollywood fare, as well as art-house films, Blaxploitation films, direct-to-DVD films, and the emerging U.S./hip-hop culture-inspired Nigerian "Nollywood" Black horror films. Horror Noire is, thus, essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how fears and anxieties about race and race relations are made manifest, and often challenged, on the silver screen.

The Joy of Eating

The Joy of Eating PDF Author: Jane K. Glenn
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1440862109
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
This volume explores our cultural celebration of food, blending lobster festivals, politicians' roadside eats, reality show "chef showdowns," and gravity-defying cakes into a deeper exploration of why people find so much joy in eating. In 1961, Julia Child introduced the American public to an entirely new, joy-infused approach to cooking and eating food. In doing so, she set in motion a food renaissance that is still in full bloom today. Over the last six decades, food has become an increasingly more diverse, prominent, and joyful point of cultural interest. The Joy of Eating discusses in detail the current golden age of food in contemporary American popular culture. Entries explore the proliferation of food-themed television shows, documentaries, and networks; the booming popularity of celebrity chefs; unusual, exotic, decadent, creative, and even mundane food trends; and cultural celebrations of food, such as in festivals and music. The volume provides depth and academic gravity by tying each entry into broader themes and larger contexts (in relation to a food-themed reality show, for example, discussing the show's popularity in direct relation to a significant economic event), providing a brief history behind popular foods and types of cuisines and tracing the evolution of our understanding of diet and nutrition, among other explications.

Halloween Good Night

Halloween Good Night PDF Author: Doug Cushman
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0805089284
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
On Halloween night, monsters, from hairy werewolves on the moors to scaly swamp creatures in a black lagoon, say good night to their mommies and daddies.

Creepy Carrots!

Creepy Carrots! PDF Author: Aaron Reynolds
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1442453095
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description
In this Caldecott Honor–winning picture book, The Twilight Zone comes to the carrot patch as a rabbit fears his favorite treats are out to get him. Includes audio! Jasper Rabbit loves carrots—especially Crackenhopper Field carrots. He eats them on the way to school. He eats them going to Little League. He eats them walking home. Until the day the carrots start following him...or are they? Celebrated artist Peter Brown’s stylish illustrations pair perfectly with Aaron Reynold’s text in this hilarious picture book that shows it’s all fun and games…until you get too greedy.

Focus On: 100 Most Popular American Internet Celebrities

Focus On: 100 Most Popular American Internet Celebrities PDF Author: Wikipedia contributors
Publisher: e-artnow sro
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 799

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Book Description


Discount Noir

Discount Noir PDF Author: Sophie Littlefield
Publisher: Untreed Reads
ISBN: 1611870070
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description
If you thought standing in line at your local warehouse store was murder, then you haven't been to Megamart. From over 40 authors come flash fiction tales of superstore madness and mayhem that will make you think twice the next time you hear "clean up on aisle 13." In addition to new and emerging authors this anthology also contains stories from legends such as Ed Gorman and Sandra Scoppettone.