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The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. New York. 1989. Viking Press. 0670825379. 549 pages. hardcover. Jacket outline illustration shows a detail from 'Rustam Killing the White Demon' from a Clive Album in the Victoria and Albert Museum.  

0670825379DESCRIPTION - Just before dawn one winter's morning, a hijacked jumbo jet blows apart high above the English Channel Through the debris of limbs, drinks trolleys, memories, blankets, and oxygen masks, two figures fall toward the sea: Gibreel Farishta, India's legendary movie star, and Saladin Chamcha, the man of a thousand voices, self-made self and Anglophile supreme. Clinging to each other, singing rival songs, they plunge downward, and are finally washed up, alive, on the snow-covered sands of an English beach. Their survival is a miracle, but an ambiguous one, as Gibreel acquires a halo, while, to Saladin's dismay, his own legs grow hairier, his feet turn into hooves, and hornlike appendages appear at his temples. Gibreel and Saladin have been chosen (by whom?) as opponents in the eternal wrestling match between Good and Evil. But which is which? Can demons be angelic? Can angels be devils in disguise? As the two men tumble through time and space toward their final confrontation, we are witness to a cycle of tales of love and passion, of betrayal and faith: the story of Ayesha, the butterfly-shrouded visionary who leads an Indian village on an impossible pilgrimage; of Alleluia Cone, the mountain climber haunted by a ghost who urges her to attempt the ultimate feat - a solo ascent of Everest; and, centrally, the story of Mahound, the Prophet of Jahilia, the city of sand - Mahound, the recipient of the revelation in which satanic verses mingle with the divine. In this great wheel of a book, where the past and the future chase each other furiously, Salman Rushdie takes us on an epic journey of tears and laughter, of bewitching stories and astonishing flights of the imagination, a journey toward the evil and good that lie entwined within the hearts of women and of men. 

Rushdie SalmanAUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Salman Rushdie (born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist.  His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent. Rushdie's second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize. After his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), Rushdie became the subject of several assassination attempts and death threats, including a fatwa calling for his death issued by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran. In total, 20 countries banned the book. Numerous killings and bombings have been carried out by extremists who cite the book as motivation, sparking a debate about censorship and religiously motivated violence. In 2022, Rushdie survived a stabbing at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York. In 1983, Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was appointed a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in 1999. Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for his services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked him 13th on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States. He was named Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University in 2015. Earlier, he taught at Emory University. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he published Joseph Anton: A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the events following The Satanic Verses. Rushdie was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in April 2023. Rushdie's personal life, including his five marriages and four divorces, has attracted notable media attention and controversies, particularly during his marriage to actress Padma Lakshm.

 

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Polish Memories by Witold Gombrowicz. New Haven. 2004. Yale University Press. 0300104103. Translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston. 191 pages. hardcover. Jacket photo coutesy of the beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University.  

0300104103DESCRIPTION - Although Witold Gombrowicz's unique, idiosyncratic writings include a three-volume Diary, this voluminous document offers few facts about his early life in Poland before his books were banned there and he went into voluntary exile. Polish Memories-a series of autobiographical sketches Gombrowicz composed for Radio Free Europe during his years in Argentina in the late 1950s-fills the gap in our knowledge. Written in a straightforward way without his famous linguistic inventions, the book presents an engaging account of Gombrowicz's childhood, youth, literary beginnings, and fellow writers in interwar Poland and reveals how these experiences and individuals shaped his seemingly outlandish concepts about the self, culture, art, and society. In addition, the book helps readers understand the numerous autobiographical allusions in his fiction and brings a new level of understanding and appreciation to his life andGombrowicz Witold work. Witold Gombrowicz is the author of Ferdydurke, Trans-Atlantyk, Pornografia, and Cosmos, the first two available from Yale University Press. These, along with his plays and the three-volume Diary, have been translated into more than thirty languages.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969), novelist, essayist, and playwright, was one of the most important Polish writers of the twentieth century. A candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, he was described by Milan Kundera as ‘one of the great novelists of our century' and by John Updike as ‘one of the profoundest of the late moderns.' Gombrowicz's works were considered scandalous and subversive by the ruling powers in Poland and were banned for nearly forty years. He spent his last years in France teaching philosophy.

 

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Two Cheers for Anarchism by James C. Scott. Princeton. 2012. Princeton University Press. 9780691155296. 10 halftones. 5 1/2 x 8 1/2. 208 pages. hardcover.  

9780691155296DESCRIPTION - James Scott taught us what's wrong with seeing like a state. Now, in his most accessible and personal book to date, the acclaimed social scientist makes the case for seeing like an anarchist. Inspired by the core anarchist faith in the possibilities of voluntary cooperation without hierarchy, Two Cheers for Anarchism is an engaging, high-spirited, and often very funny defense of an anarchist way of seeing - one that provides a unique and powerful perspective on everything from everyday social and political interactions to mass protests and revolutions. Through a wide-ranging series of memorable anecdotes and examples, the book describes an anarchist sensibility that celebrates the local knowledge, common sense, and creativity of ordinary people. The result is a kind of handbook on constructive anarchism that challenges us to radically reconsider the value of hierarchy in public and private life, from schools and workplaces to retirement homes and government itself. Beginning with what Scott calls the law of anarchist calisthenics, an argument for law-breaking inspired by an East German pedestrian crossing, each chapter opens with a story that captures an essential anarchist truth. In the course of telling these stories, Scott touches on a wide variety of subjects: public disorder and riots, desertion, poaching, vernacular knowledge, assembly-line production, globalization, the petty bourgeoisie, school testing, playgrounds, and the practice of historical explanation. Far from a dogmatic manifesto, Two Cheers for Anarchism celebrates the anarchist confidence in the inventiveness and judgment of people who are free to exercise their creative and moral capacities.

Scott James CAUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - James Campbell Scott (December 2, 1936 – July 19, 2024) was an American political scientist and anthropologist specializing in comparative politics. He was a comparative scholar of agrarian and non-state societies. Trained as a political scientist, Scott's scholarship discussed peasant societies, state power, and political resistance. From 1968 to 1985, Scott wrote influentially on agrarian politics in peninsular Malaysia. While he retained a lifelong interest in Southeast Asia and peasantries, his later works ranged across many topics: quiet forms of political resistance, the failures of state-led social transformation, techniques used by non-state societies to avoid state control, commonplace uses of anarchist principles, and the rise of early agricultural states. His posthumous book, In Praise of Floods, is expected to be published in February 2025. The New York Times described his research as "highly influential and idiosyncratic". Scott received his bachelor's degree from Williams College and his MA and PhD in political science from Yale. He taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison until 1976 and then at Yale, where he was Sterling Professor of Political Science. In 1991, he became director of Yale's Program in Agrarian Studies. At the time of his death, The New York Times described Scott as among the most widely read social scientists.

 

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Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham. New York. 1946. Rinehart & Company. 275 pages. hardcover.  

nightmare alley rinehart and company 1946DESCRIPTION - This story is a study of the lowest depths of showbiz and its sleazy inhabitants and environs, the dark, shadowy world of a second rate carnival filled with cheap hustlers, scheming grifters, and Machiavellian femmes fatales. Gresham was born in Baltimore in 1909, but grew up in New York. Nightmare Alley was highly influenced by the freaks and sideshows he routinely observed at Coney Island as a child. The dark side of carnival life is the world of Nightmare Alley, deeply rooted in early film noir and the hard-boiled books of Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain. The book depicts the rise of Stan Carlisle from a carnival mentalist to a successful 'spiritualist,' preying on the rich and gullible matrons of society, to his eventual fall and total disintegration. Gresham's first book, and the basis for the 1947 film noir of the same title starring Tyrone Power.

Gresham William LindsayAUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - William Lindsay Gresham (August 20, 1909 - September 14, 1962) was an American novelist and non-fiction author particularly well-regarded among readers of noir. His best-known work is Nightmare Alley (1946), which was adapted into a 1947 film starring Tyrone Power. Gresham was born in Baltimore, Maryland. As a child, he moved to New York with his family, where he became fascinated by the sideshow at Coney Island. Upon graduating from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn in 1926, Gresham drifted from job to job, and worked as a folk singer in Greenwich Village. In 1937, Gresham served as a volunteer medic for the Loyalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. There, he befriended a former sideshow employee, Joseph Daniel "Doc" Halliday, and their long conversations inspired much of his work, particularly Gresham's two books about the American carnival, the nonfiction Monster Midway and the fictional Nightmare Alley. Returning to the United States in 1939, after a troubling period that involved a stay in a tuberculosis ward and a failed suicide attempt, Gresham found work editing true crime pulp magazines. In 1942, Gresham married Joy Davidman, a poet, with whom he had two children, David and Douglas. Gresham was an abusive and alcoholic husband. Davidman, an ethnically Jewish atheist, became a fan of the writings of C. S. Lewis, which led eventually to her conversion to Christianity. After a violent encounter with Gresham, who wanted a divorce, Davidman ultimately agreed to end her marriage to Gresham and later married Lewis, their relationship forming the inspiration for the play and movie Shadowlands. Gresham married Davidman's first cousin, Renee Rodriguez, with whom he had been having an affair and who was herself suffering an abusive marriage. Gresham joined Alcoholics Anonymous and developed a deep interest in Spiritualism, having already exposed many of the fraudulent techniques of popular spiritualists in his two sideshow-themed books and having written a book about Houdini with the assistance of noted skeptic James Randi. He was also an early enthusiast of Scientology but later denounced the religion as another kind of spook racket. In 1962, Gresham's health began to take a turn for the worse. He had started to go blind and was diagnosed with tongue cancer. On September 14, 1962, he checked into the Hotel Carter, Manhattan  -  which he had often frequented while writing Nightmare Alley over a decade earlier. There, 53-year-old Gresham took his life with an overdose of sleeping pills. His death went generally unnoticed by the New York press, but for a mention by a bridge columnist. In his pocket they found business cards reading, "No Address. No Phone. No Business. No Money. Retired."

 

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The Scholar Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology by Aldon D. Morris. Oakland. 2015. University of California Press. 9780520276352. 282 pages. hardcover.  

9780520276352DESCRIPTION - In this groundbreaking book, Aldon D. Morris's ambition is truly monumental: to help rewrite the history of sociology and to acknowledge the primacy of W. E. B. Du Bois's work in the founding of the discipline. Calling into question the prevailing narrative of how sociology developed, Morris, a major scholar of social movements, probes the way in which the history of the discipline has traditionally given credit to Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago, who worked with the conservative black leader Booker T. Washington to render Du Bois invisible. Morris uncovers the seminal theoretical work of Du Bois in developing a “scientific” sociology through a variety of methodologies and examines how the leading scholars of the day disparaged and ignored Du Bois's work. The Scholar Denied is based on extensive, rigorous primary source research; the book is the result of a decade of research, writing, and revision. In exposing the economic and political factors that marginalized the contributions of Du Bois and enabled Park and his colleagues to be recognized as the “fathers” of the discipline, Morris delivers a wholly new narrative of American intellectual and social history that places one of America's key intellectuals, W. E. B. Du Bois, at its center. The Scholar Denied is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, racial inequality, and the academy. In challenging our understanding of the past, the book promisesMorris Aldon D to engender debate and discussion.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Aldon D. Morris is Leon Forrest Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University and the author of The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change, among other books.

 

 

 

 

 

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Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa. New York. 1975. Harper & Row. 0060145021. Translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa. 601 pages. hardcover. Jacket photo by Cesar Malet.

  
0060145021DESCRIPTION - A powerful novel of political and personal greed, corruption, and terror set in modem Peru, by the author of The Green House and THE TIME OF THE HERO. Under the rule of the unseen military dictator General Odria. suspicion, paranoia, and blackmail become the realities of public and private life. Lust and violence are commodities for the rich and powerful, and for the people there is anonymity or recognition, real or imagined, as enemies of the public order. Through the doors of The Cathedral, a bar and brothel in Lima, come the participants - escapees, and ordinary citizens of a city caught in a web of rottenness and fear. For Santiago Zavala, journalist and son of a rich and famous politician, and the former chauffeur Ambrosio, a chance meeting begins a narrative of events that encompasses their lives and those of many others. Full of vivid scenes and characters, this is an extraordinary panorama of city life during a dictator's regime and the story of its incipient decay and breakdown. Conversation in The Cathedral is a frightening and impressive portrait of political evil by a leadingVargas Llosa Mario contemporary Latin American novelist. Written on many levels and brilliantly translated by Gregory Rabassa, it appropriately takes its epigraph from Balzac ‘the novel is the private history of nations.'

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010. Peru's foremost writer, he has been awarded the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's most distinguished literary honor, and the Jerusalem Prize. His many works include THE FEAST OF THE GOAT, THE BAD GIRL, AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER, THE WAR OF THE END OF THE WORLD, and THE STORYTELLER. He lives in London.

 

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The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: An Age Like This, 1920-1940, Volume 1 by George Orwell. New York. 1968. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Edited by Sonia Orwell & Ian Angus. 574 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by S. A. Summit, Inc.

collected essays journalism and letters of george orwell v1DESCRIPTION - I: AN AGE LIKE THIS, 1920-1940. This volume is drawn from the years when George Orwell began to explore the life of the poor and was struggling to establish himself as a novelist and factual reporter. Disillusioned with Communism in Spain, rejected for service in the war against Hitler, already ill, he faced hostilities in a mood of frustration.Orwell George


AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 - 21 January 1950), known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, biting social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism. He is best known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics and literature, language and culture.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: My Country Right or Left, 1940-1943, Volume 2 by George Orwell. New York. 1968. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Edited by Sonia Orwell & Ian Angus. 477 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by S. A. Summit, Inc.

  
collected essays journalism and letters of george orwell v2DESCRIPTION - 2: MY COUNTRY RIGHT OR LEFT, 1940-1943. The second volume principally covers the two years when George Orwell worked as a Talks Assistant, and later Producer, in the Indian section of the B.B.C. At the same time he was writing for Horizon, Tribune, the New Statesman, and other periodicals.Orwell George His war-time diaries are included here.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 - 21 January 1950), known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, biting social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism. He is best known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics and literature, language and culture.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: As I Please, 1943-1945, Volume 3 by George Orwell. New York. 1968. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Edited by Sonia Orwell & Ian Angus. 435 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by S. A. Summit, Inc.


collected essays journalism and letters of george orwell v3DESCRIPTION - 3: AS I PLEASE, 1943 - 1945. For some eighteen months during the war Orwell was employed as literary editor of Tribune. The new freedom he experienced was expressed in the title and style of the regular feature he contributed - ‘As I Please.' ANIMAL FARM, the book most likely to immortalize his name, was written during the period covered by this volume . . . and refused by three leadingOrwell George publishers. Briefly after the Second Front, he was a war correspondent.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 - 21 January 1950), known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, biting social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism. He is best known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics and literature, language and culture.

 

 

 

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The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950, Volume 4 by George Orwell. New York. 1969. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Edited by Sonia Orwell & Ian Angus. 555 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by S. A. Summit, Inc.

  
collected essays journalism and letters of george orwell v4DESCRIPTION - 4: IN FRONT OF YOUR NOSE, 1945-1950. This last volume contains the letters, reviews and other pieces which Orwell wrote during the last five years of his life: they include ‘Such, such were the joys', a reminiscence of his preparatory school. ANIMAL FARM had eventually relieved him of financial worry, but during the drafting and writing of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR he wasOrwell George increasingly handicapped by the illness of which he died early in 1950.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 - 21 January 1950), known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, biting social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism. He is best known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics and literature, language and culture.

 

 

 

 

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