My Country Is Literature

My Country Is Literature PDF Author: Chandrahas Choudhury
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9392099118
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 333

Get Book Here

Book Description
'A book is only one text, but it is many books. It is a different book for each of its readers. My Anna Karenina is not your Anna Karenina; your A House for Mr Biswas is not the one on my shelf. When we think of a favourite book, we recall not only the shape of the story, the characters who touched our hearts, the rhythm and texture of the sentences. We recall our own circumstances when we read it: where we bought it (and for how much), what kind of joy or solace it provided, how scenes from the story began to intermingle with scenes from our life, how it roused us to anger or indignation or allowed us to make our peace with some great private discord. This is the second life of the book: its life in our life.' In his early twenties, the novelist Chandrahas Choudhury found himself in the position of most young people who want to write: impractical, hard-up, ill at ease in the world. Like most people who love to read, his most radiant hours were inside the pages of a book. Seeking to combine his love of writing with his love of reading, he became an adept of a trade that is mainly transacted lying down—that is, he became a book reviewer. Pleasure, independence, aesthetic rapture, even a modest livelihood: all these were the rewards of being a worker bee of literature, ingesting the output of the publishers of the world in great quantities and trying to explain in the pages of newspapers and magazines exactly what makes a book leave a mark on the soul. Even as Choudhury's own novels began to be published, he continued to write about other writers' books: his contemporaries at home and abroad, the great Indian writers of the past, the relationship of the reading life —in particular, the novel—to selfhood and democracy, all the ways in which literature sings the truths of the human heart. My Country Is Literature brings together the best of his literary criticism: a long train of perceptive essays on writers as diverse as VS Naipaul and Orhan Pamuk, Gandhi and Nehru, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay and Jhumpa Lahiri. The book also contains an introductory essay describing Choudhury's book-saturated years as a young writer in Mumbai, the joys and sorrows and stratagems of the book reviewer's trade, and the ways in which literature is made as much by readers as by writers. Delightfully punctuated with 15 portraits of writers by the artist Golak Khandual, My Country Is Literature is essential reading for everyone who believes that books are the most beautiful things in life.

My Country Is Literature

My Country Is Literature PDF Author: Chandrahas Choudhury
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9392099118
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 333

Get Book Here

Book Description
'A book is only one text, but it is many books. It is a different book for each of its readers. My Anna Karenina is not your Anna Karenina; your A House for Mr Biswas is not the one on my shelf. When we think of a favourite book, we recall not only the shape of the story, the characters who touched our hearts, the rhythm and texture of the sentences. We recall our own circumstances when we read it: where we bought it (and for how much), what kind of joy or solace it provided, how scenes from the story began to intermingle with scenes from our life, how it roused us to anger or indignation or allowed us to make our peace with some great private discord. This is the second life of the book: its life in our life.' In his early twenties, the novelist Chandrahas Choudhury found himself in the position of most young people who want to write: impractical, hard-up, ill at ease in the world. Like most people who love to read, his most radiant hours were inside the pages of a book. Seeking to combine his love of writing with his love of reading, he became an adept of a trade that is mainly transacted lying down—that is, he became a book reviewer. Pleasure, independence, aesthetic rapture, even a modest livelihood: all these were the rewards of being a worker bee of literature, ingesting the output of the publishers of the world in great quantities and trying to explain in the pages of newspapers and magazines exactly what makes a book leave a mark on the soul. Even as Choudhury's own novels began to be published, he continued to write about other writers' books: his contemporaries at home and abroad, the great Indian writers of the past, the relationship of the reading life —in particular, the novel—to selfhood and democracy, all the ways in which literature sings the truths of the human heart. My Country Is Literature brings together the best of his literary criticism: a long train of perceptive essays on writers as diverse as VS Naipaul and Orhan Pamuk, Gandhi and Nehru, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay and Jhumpa Lahiri. The book also contains an introductory essay describing Choudhury's book-saturated years as a young writer in Mumbai, the joys and sorrows and stratagems of the book reviewer's trade, and the ways in which literature is made as much by readers as by writers. Delightfully punctuated with 15 portraits of writers by the artist Golak Khandual, My Country Is Literature is essential reading for everyone who believes that books are the most beautiful things in life.

Dude, Where's My Country?

Dude, Where's My Country? PDF Author: Michael Moore
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141938390
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 391

Get Book Here

Book Description
He's the man everyone's talking about. He's taken on gun freaks, stupid white men and corporate crooks. Now Michael Moore is on a new mission: to get us of our behinds and kicking out the corrupt political elites who rule our lives.

My Country and My People

My Country and My People PDF Author: Yutang Lin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 510

Get Book Here

Book Description


Human Landscapes

Human Landscapes PDF Author: Nâzım Hikmet
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : tr
Pages : 332

Get Book Here

Book Description
A Turkish epic poem offers portraits of varying lengths about ordinary people caught up in the wars, occupations, and independence of Turkey.

The Sea Is My Country

The Sea Is My Country PDF Author: Joshua L. Reid
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300213689
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419

Get Book Here

Book Description
For the Makahs, a tribal nation at the most northwestern point of the contiguous United States, a deep relationship with the sea is the locus of personal and group identity. Unlike most other indigenous tribes whose lives are tied to lands, the Makah people have long placed marine space at the center of their culture, finding in their own waters the physical and spiritual resources to support themselves. This book is the first to explore the history and identity of the Makahs from the arrival of maritime fur-traders in the eighteenth century through the intervening centuries and to the present day. Joshua L. Reid discovers that the “People of the Cape” were far more involved in shaping the maritime economy of the Pacific Northwest than has been understood. He examines Makah attitudes toward borders and boundaries, their efforts to exercise control over their waters and resources as Europeans and Americans arrived, and their embrace of modern opportunities and technology to maintain autonomy and resist assimilation. The author also addresses current environmental debates relating to the tribe's customary whaling and fishing rights and illuminates the efforts of the Makahs to regain control over marine space, preserve their marine-oriented identity, and articulate a traditional future.

Poor Fellow My Country

Poor Fellow My Country PDF Author: Xavier Herbert
Publisher: Angus & Robertson
ISBN: 9780732299460
Category : Australia
Languages : en
Pages : 1472

Get Book Here

Book Description
Poor Fellow My Country is an Australian classic, perhaps THE Australian classic' - The Times Literary Supplement. From Australia's oldest publisher comes the longest Australian novel ever published. The winner of the 1975 Miles Franklin Award is now back in print with a new introduction by Russell McDougall. In Poor Fellow My Country, Xavier Herbert returns to the region made his own in Capricornia: Northern Australia. Ranging over a period of some six years, the story is set during the late 1930s and early 1940s; but it is not so much a tale of this period as Herbert's analysis and indictment of the steps by which we came to the Australia of today. Herbert parallels an intimate personal narrative with a tale of approaching war and the disconnect between modern Australia and its first inhabitants. With enduring portraits of a large cast of local and international characters, Herbert paints a scene of racial, familial and political disparity. He lays bare the paradoxes of this wild land, both old and wise, young and flawed. Winner of the Miles Franklin award on first publication in 1975, Poor Fellow My Country is masterful storytelling, an epic in the truest sense. This is the decisive story of how Australia threw away her chance of becoming a true commonwealth and it is undoubtedly Herbert's supreme contribution to Australian literature. Will we ever reach the dream of 'Australia Felix' - the happy south land?

God and My Country

God and My Country PDF Author: MacKinlay Kantor
Publisher: Speaking Volumes
ISBN: 1628156228
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 98

Get Book Here

Book Description
MACKINLAY KANTOR Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Andersonville GOD AND MY COUNTRY A Novel By MacKinlay Kantor BASIS FOR THE MOVIE FOLLOW ME, BOYS MacKinlay Kantor, the master of the warm and human story, the writer who can make us believe the good in the worst of us, has woven a compelling, appealing novel about the life of a simple American man who held in his care the destinies of hundreds of boys. Here for the first time a major writer portrays the Scoutmaster in a small town in a role as vital as the greatest of schoolmasters, doctors, priests, or ministers. With rare insight and sym­pathy, MacKinlay Kantor has created the memorable Lem Siddons, who gave forty years of his wisdom, the fund of his laughter, the knowledgeable touch, the sweetness and love that were his, to generations of Boy Scouts. Not every boy who passed khaki-clothed along his life won the world's respect or the Scout­master's pride. There were some misfits, fallers-by-the-wayside . . . sure. But Lem Siddons knew his reward every waking moment of his life and in his dreams as well. His story is one you will remember as that of the closest of your friends: his love for the delicate and freckled Vida that grew with a lifetime, his son Downey who wanted to crowd the years. All the good Kantor writing is here, the lucid and homespun prose that makes tears well in your eyes even as a song rises in your heart. MacKinlay Kantor has set the scene for God and My Country in a small town very much like Webster City, Iowa, where he was born, and has dedicated the book to his Scoutmaster of those days. It is a perfect example of MacKinlay Kantor's special genius for capturing the full flavor of a small American town, and of its people. "There's a Mr. Chips' quality to this deceptively simple story. MacKinlay Kantor has told quietly, in realistic terms, the story of one man whose in­fluence permeate a whole Iowa town and rural area. No drum heating for the American vision here, but true democracy emerges in boys at every social and human level. A microcosm of America that strengthens one's faith."—Virginia Kirkus "God and My Country is a song from the heart of America which I would love to sing."—Burl Ives

To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race

To Serve My Country, to Serve My Race PDF Author: Brenda L. Moore
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 9780814755877
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book Here

Book Description
I would have climbed up a mountain to get on the list [to serve overseas]. We were going to do our duty. Despite all the bad things that happened, America was our home. This is where I was born. It was where my mother and father were. There was a feeling of wanting to do your part. --Gladys Carter, member of the 6888th To Serve My Country, to Serve my Race is the story of the historic 6888th, the first United States Women's Army Corps unit composed of African-American women to serve overseas. While African-American men and white women were invited, if belatedly, to serve their country abroad, African-American women were excluded for overseas duty throughout most of WWII. Under political pressure from legislators like Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the NAACP, the black press, and even President Roosevelt, the U.S. War Department was forced to deploy African-American women to the European theater in 1945. African-American women, having succeeded, through their own activism and political ties, in their quest to shape their own lives, answered the call from all over the country, from every socioeconomic stratum. Stationed in France and England at the end of World War II, the 6888th brought together women like Mary Daniel Williams, a cook in the 6888th who signed up for the Army to escape the slums of Cleveland and to improve her ninth-grade education, and Margaret Barnes Jones, a public relations officer of the 6888th, who grew up in a comfortable household with a politically active mother who encouraged her to challenge the system. Despite the social, political, and economic restrictions imposed upon these African-American women in their own country, they were eager to serve, not only out of patriotism but out of a desire to uplift their race and dispell bigoted preconceptions about their abilities. Elaine Bennett, a First Sergeant in the 6888th, joined because "I wanted to prove to myself and maybe to the world that we would give what we had back to the United States as a confirmation that we were full- fledged citizens." Filled with compelling personal testimony based on extensive interviews, To Serve My Country is the first book to document the lives of these courageous pioneers. It reveals how their Army experience affected them for the rest of their lives and how they, in turn, transformed the U.S. military forever.

It's My Country Too

It's My Country Too PDF Author: Jerri Bell
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1612348319
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Get Book Here

Book Description
This inspiring anthology it the first to convey the noteworthy experiences and contributions of women in the American military in their own words-from the Revolutionary War to the present wars in the Middle East. Serving with the Union Army during the Civil War as a nurse, scout, spy, and soldier, Harriet Tubman tells what it was like to be the first American woman to lead a raid against an enemy, freeing some 750 slaves. Busting gender stereotypes, Inga Fredriksen Ferris's describes how it felt to be a woman marine during World War II. Heidi Squier Kraft recounts her experiences as a lieutenant commander in the navy, deployed to Iraq as a psychologist to provide mental health care in a combat zone. In excerpts from their diaries, letters, oral histories, military depositions and testimonies, as well as from published and unpublished memoirs-generations of women reveal why and how they chose to serve their country, often breaking with social norms and at great personal peril.

To My Country

To My Country PDF Author: Ben Lawson
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1761060902
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 99

Get Book Here

Book Description
Ben Lawson was preparing for another Christmas away from home when the Black Summer bushfires began to burn their way across Australia's eastern coast. As the bushfires continued to rage into the new year on an unprecedented scale, Ben, feeling angry, helpless and broken-hearted as he watched the devastation from across the ocean, sat down and put his feelings into words. To My Country is an ode to the endurance of the Australian spirit and the shared love of our country. In the true Aussie spirit, Ben and Allen & Unwin will be donating proceeds of To My Country to The Koala Hospital. 'A delightful love letter to a homeland: the kind only an Australian could write. Full of humour, charm and deeply felt belonging. And to think of all the orphaned koalas who will benefit from you buying and enjoying this wonderful little book ...' -Stephen Fry- 'An impassioned cry from the big, kind heart of a big, kind man.' -Tim Minchin- 'Ben Lawson's love of his homeland inspires us all to think of our own roots . . . and the need to protect them.' -Dolly Parton- 'Ben Lawson's book is a heartfelt reminder of how desperately we need to think about our future as a country. His sincerity is moving. I dare you not to cry.' -Julia Stone- 'Ben Lawson writes in the tradition of his namesake Henry Lawson; an eloquent bush ballad that mourns the tragic fate of one billion bushfire victims.' -Barry Humphries-