Each volume of EVANS SHAKESPEARE is edited by a Shakespearean scholar. The pedagogy is designed to help students contextualize Renaissance drama, while... providing explanatory notes to the play.

"A Manifesto for Literary Studies", writes Marjorie Garber, "is an attempt to remind us of the specificity of what it means to ask literary questions,... and the pleasure of thinking through and with literature. It is a manifesto in the sense that it invites strong declarations and big ideas, rather than impeccable small contributions to edifices long under construction". Known for her timely challenges to the preconceptions and often unquestioned boundaries that circumscribe our culture, Garber's beautifully crafted arguments situate "big public questions of intellectual importance" - such as human nature and historical correctness - within the practice of literary historians and critics. This manifesto revives the ancient craft whose ultimate focus is language in action. In this book, Garber passionately states that "the future importance of literary studies - and, if we care about such things, its intellectual and cultural prestige both among the other disciplines and in the world - will come from taking risks, and not from playing it safe". Marjorie Garber is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at Harvard University, the director of the Humanities Center and the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard, and the president of the Consortium for Humanities Centers and Institutions.

The setting is Atlanta, Georgia — a racially mixed, late-century boomtown full of fresh wealth and wily politicians. The protagonist is Charles... Croker, once a college football star, now a late-middle-aged Atlanta conglomerate king whose outsize ego has at last hit up against reality. Charlie has a 29,000 acre quail-shooting plantation, a young and demanding second wife, and a half-empty office complex with a staggering load of debt.Meanwhile, Conrad Hensley, idealistic young father of two, is laid off from his job at the Croker Global Foods warehouse near Oakland and finds himself spiraling into the lower depths of the American legal system.And back in Atlanta, when star Georgia Tech running back Fareek “the Canon” Fanon, a homegrown product of the city’s slums, is accused of date-raping the daughter of a pillar of the white establishment, upscale black lawyer Roger White II is asked to represent Fanon and help keep the city’s delicate racial balance from blowing sky-high.Networks of illegal Asian immigrants crisscrossing the continent, daily life behind bars, shady real estate syndicates — Wolfe shows us contemporary America with all the verve, wit, and insight that have made him our most admired novelist. Charlie Croker’s deliverance from his tribulations provides an unforgettable denouement to the most widely awaited, hilarious and telling novel America has seen in ages — Tom Wolfe’s most outstanding achievement to date.

Publication Date: 1999 "All those years you tried your best to break me, and I'm still here. One day you'll see, I'm going to make something of myself."... These words were Dave Pelzer's declaration of independence to his mother, and they represented the ultimate act of self-reliance. Dave's father never intervened as his mother abused him with shocking brutality. But even after he was rescued, his life remained haunted by memories of his years as the bruised, cowering "It" locked in his mother's basement. Desperately trying to make something of his life, Dave was determined to weather every setback and gain strength from adversity. With stunning generosity of spirit, Dave Pelzer invites readers on his journey to discover how a lost, nameless boy finally found himself in the heart and soul of a man who is free at last. .

By the renowned author of Things Fall Apart, this novel foreshadows the Nigerian coups of 1966 and shows the color and vivacity as well as the violence... and corruption of a society making its own way between the two worlds.

In the late fifteenth century, many of the Jews expelled from Spain made their way to Morocco and established a dynamic community in Fez. A number of... Jewish families became prominent in commerce and public life there. Among the Jews of Fez of Hispanic origin was Samuel Pallache, who served the Moroccan sultan as a commercial and diplomatic agent in Holland until Pallache's death in 1616. Before that, he had tried to return with his family to Spain, and to this end he tried to convert to Catholicism and worked as an informer, intermediary, and spy in Moroccan affairs for the Spanish court. Later he became a privateer against Spanish ships and was tried in London for that reason. His religious identity proved to be as mutable as his political allegiances: when in Amsterdam, he was devoutly Jewish; when in Spain, a loyal converso (a baptized Jew).In A Man of Three Worlds, Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers view Samuel Pallache's world as a microcosm of early modern society, one far more interconnected, cosmopolitan, and fluid than is often portrayed. Pallache's missions and misadventures took him from Islamic Fez and Catholic Spain to Protestant England and Holland. Through these travels, the authors explore the workings of the Moroccan sultanate and the Spanish court, the Jewish communities of Fez and Amsterdam, and details of the Atlantic-Mediterranean trade. At once a sweeping view of two continents, three faiths, and five nation-states and an intimate story of one man's remarkable life, A Man of Three Worlds is history at its most compelling.

In the late fifteenth century, many of the Jews expelled from Spain made their way to Morocco and established a dynamic community in Fez. A number of... Jewish families became prominent in commerce and public life there. Among the Jews of Fez of Hispanic origin was Samuel Pallache, who served the Moroccan sultan as a commercial and diplomatic agent in Holland until Pallache's death in 1616. Before that, he had tried to return with his family to Spain, and to this end he tried to convert to Catholicism and worked as an informer, intermediary, and spy in Moroccan affairs for the Spanish court. Later he became a privateer against Spanish ships and was tried in London for that reason. His religious identity proved to be as mutable as his political allegiances: when in Amsterdam, he was devoutly Jewish; when in Spain, a loyal converso (a baptized Jew).In A Man of Three Worlds, Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers view Samuel Pallache's world as a microcosm of early modern society, one far more interconnected, cosmopolitan, and fluid than is often portrayed. Pallache's missions and misadventures took him from Islamic Fez and Catholic Spain to Protestant England and Holland. Through these travels, the authors explore the workings of the Moroccan sultanate and the Spanish court, the Jewish communities of Fez and Amsterdam, and details of the Atlantic-Mediterranean trade. At once a sweeping view of two continents, three faiths, and five nation-states and an intimate story of one man's remarkable life, A Man of Three Worlds is history at its most compelling.

On the night of July 20, 1969, our world changed forever when two Americans, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walked on the moon. Now the greatest event... of the twentieth century is magnificently retold through the eyes and ears of the people who were there. Based on the interviews with twentythree moon voyagers, as well as those who struggled to get the program moving, journalist Andrew Chaikin conveys every aspect of the missions with breathtaking immediacy: from the rush of liftoff, to the heartstopping lunar touchdown, to the final hurdle of reentry.

This acclaimed portrait of heroism and ingenuity captures a watershed moment in human history. The astronauts themselves have called it the definitive... account of their missions. On the night of July 20, 1969, our world changed forever when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. Based on in-depth interviews with twenty-three of the twenty-four moon voyagers, as well as those who struggled to get the program moving, A Man on the Moon conveys every aspect of the Apollo missions with breathtaking immediacy and stunning detail.

"Brought to life by a poetic and muscular style, Jenkins’s writing is a brew of history, philosophy, and raw emotion. His journeys are as intellectual... and spiritual as they are physical, and we are by his side, in his head." So wrote Robin Russin for the LA Times about Mark Jenkins’s last book, The Hard Way. In A Man’s Life, Jenkins walks across northern Afghanistan, retracing the ancient route of Marco Polo; clandestinely enters northern Burma, slipping along the forgotten Burma Road; climbs a new route in Uganda’s Mountains of the Moon; bicycles across Lithuania with a long-lost friend; canoes through Surinam with the Maroons, descendants of escaped slaves. Described by critic Bill Berkeley as having a "Whitmanesque openness to experience," Jenkins’s desire to explore and understand the world has pushed him to extremes most of us cannot imagine—being arrested in a dozen different countries from Tibet to Tajikistan, breaking a dozen bones, climbing inside glaciers in Iceland, narrowly escaping falling glaciers on Mont Blanc. Through his willingness to put himself out there, Jenkins captures profound glimpses of our chaotic, contradictory, ever-morphing world. A Man’s Life shares how these experiences change Jenkins from a reckless young globetrotter to a mature, contemplative family man who seeks adventure because he viscerally must, and yet is constantly aware of the dangers of the world and its cool-faced indifference to one man’s life. Each departure from home could be permanent and each homecoming is layered with pathos—his latest journey might have cost him his daughter’s first steps or his wife’s birthday. The tales in A Man’s Life explore the razor’s edge between life and death, as well as the nature of love and friendship, failure and redemption. Together, they unite Jenkins’s stunning travels with his lucid contemplations on the meaning of it all. Praised by Richard Bernstein in The New York Times for being able to "[transform] a common sight into a moment of pure magic" and by Amanda Heller in the Boston Globe as "blessed with a rare combination of physical and intellectual grace … he makes us understand what pushes the man who pushes the envelope," Jenkins is one of the rare writers who channels action-packed adventure into lyrical, evocative storytelling.

Domesticity is generally treated as an aspect of women’s history. In this fascinating study of the nineteenth-century middle class, John Tosh shows... how profoundly men’s lives were conditioned by the Victorian ideal and how they negotiated its many contradictions.Tosh begins by looking at the experience of boyhood, married life, sex, and fatherhood in the early decades of the nineteenth century—illustrated by case studies representing a variety of backgrounds—and then contrasts this with the lives of the late Victorian generation. He finds that the first group of men placed a new value on the home as a reaction to the disorienting experience of urbanization and as a response to the teachings of Evangelical Christianity. Domesticity still proved problematic in practice, however, because most men were likely to be absent from home for most of the day, and the role of father began to acquire its modern indeterminacy. By the 1870s, men were becoming less enchanted with the pleasures of home. Once the rights of wives were extended by law and society, marriage seemed less attractive, and the bachelor world of clubland flourished as never before.The Victorians declared that to be fully human and fully masculine, men must be active participants in domestic life. In exposing the contradictions in this ideal, they defined the climate for gender politics in the next century.

A sad and alcoholic man in search of a woman to live and to die with, to love and to grow old with, and her, a girl who feels invaded by the other one,... the new woman in her father s life: an ugly woman who finds any means to feel beautiful. Once again, Montero shows the luminous and selfish side of the soul through stories with a common ground: the complexity of human relationships. Those who have had lovers and/or enemies will identify with these short stories, which are for enjoying and to reflect upon. Spanish Description: Un hombre alcoholico y triste en busca de una mujer para vivir y para morir, para amar y envejecer con ella una nina que se siente invadida por la otra, la nueva mujer de su padre: una mujer fea que encuentra razones para sentirse bella e inocente... Una vez mas, Rosa Montero nos muestra el lado luminoso y mezquino del alma, a traves de historias con un punto en comun: la complejidad de las relaciones humanas. Quien haya tenido amantes y/o enemigos se encontrara retratado en estos cuentos, que no son solo para disfrutar sino tambien para reflexionar.

This is the extraordinary first-person account of a young woman's coming of age in Somalia and her struggles against the obligations and strictures of... family and society.  By the time she is nine, Aman has undergone a ritual circumcision ceremony; at eleven, her innocent romance with a white boy leads to a murder; at thirteen she is given away in an arranged marriage to a stranger.  Aman eventually runs away to Mogadishu, where her beauty and rebellious spirit leads her to the decadent demimonde of white colonialists.  Hers is a world in which women are both chattel and freewheeling entrepreneurs, subject to the caprices of male relatives, yet keenly aware of the loopholes that lead to freedom.  Aman is an astonishing history, opening a window onto traditional Somali life and the universal quest for female self-awareness.  

Dans L''Amant, Marguerite Duras reprend sur le ton de la confidence les images et les thèmes qui hantent toute son œuvre. Ses lecteurs vont pouvoir... ensuite descendre ce grand fleuve aux lenteurs asiatiques et suivre la romancière dans tous les méandres du delta, dans la moiteur des rizières, dans les secrets ombreux où elle a développé l''incantation répétitive et obsédante de ses livres, de ses films, de son théâtre. Au sens propre, Duras est ici remontée à ses sources, à sa « scène fondamentale » : ce moment où, vers 1930, sur un bac traversant un bras du Mékong, un Chinois richissime s''approche d''une petite Blanche de quinze ans qu''il va aimer.Il faut lire les plus beaux morceaux de L''Amant à haute voix. On percevra mieux ainsi le rythme, la scansion, la respiration intime de la prose, qui sont les subtils secrets de l''écrivain. Dès les premières lignes du récit éclatent l''art et le savoir-faire de Duras, ses libertés, ses défis, les conquêtes de trente années pour parvenir à écrire cette langue allégée, neutre, rapide et lancinante à la fois, capable de saisir toutes les nuances, d''aller à la vitesse exacte de la pensée et des images. Un extrême réalisme (on voit le fleuve ; on entend les cris de Cholon derrière les persiennes dans la garçonnière du Chinois), et en même temps une sorte de rêve éveillé, de vie rêvée, un cauchemar de vie : cette prose à nulle autre pareille est d''une formidable efficacité. À la fois la modernité, la vraie, et des singularités qui sont hors du temps, des styles, de la mode.François NourissierPrix Goncourt 1984, ce roman s''est vendu toutes éditions confondues à 2 400 000 exemplaires. Il a été traduit dans 35 pays.