John Lescault
Author
Language
English
Description
"The life of Gore Vidal was an amazingly full one: full of colorful incident, famous people, and lasting achievements that calls out for careful evocation and examination. Jay Parini crafts Vidal's life into [a] ... story that puts the experience of one of the great American figures of the postwar era into context; introduces the author and his works to a generation who may not know him; and looks behind the scenes at the man and his work in ways...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Laki is Iceland's largest volcano. Its eruption in 1783 is one of history's great, untold natural disasters. Spewing out sun-blocking ash and then a poisonous fog for eight long months, the effects of the eruption lingered across the world for years. It caused the deaths of people as far away as the Nile and created catastrophic conditions throughout Europe. Island on Fire is the story not only of a single eruption but the people whose lives it...
Author
Language
English
Description
A gifted American artist finds fame, fortune, and tragedy in Europe in this classic tale. Working in obscurity, sculptor Roderick Hudson finds a generous patron in Rowland Mallet, an art aficionado so captivated by the young man's work, he offers to take Hudson with him to Europe. Mallet soon falls in love with Miss Mary Garland, a distant cousin of Hudson's who lives with the family and tends to his aging mother. Unfortunately, Hudson has already...
Author
Language
English
Description
"A groundbreaking book about how technological advances in genomics and the extraction of ancient DNA have profoundly changed our understanding of human prehistory while resolving many long-standing controversies. Massive technological innovations now allow scientists to extract and analyze ancient DNA as never before, and it has become clear--in part from David Reich's own contributions to the field--that genomics is as important a means of understanding...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Deals with the war between the wheat grower and the railroad trust."
"First novel in 'The Epic of Wheat,' a projected trilogy. Set mostly in the San Joaquin Valley and San Francisco, it shows the conflict between wheat ranchers and the railroad ('The Octopus') that is the lifeline of trading and shipping. The bloody encounter at the climax of the novel is based on the 'Mussel Slough Tragedy' of May, 1880. The novel roughly covers the period of the...
6) Cape Cod
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Thoreau's classic account of his meditative, beach-combing walking trips to Cape Cod in the early 1850s, reflecting on the elemental forces of the sea, with an introduction by Paul Theroux
Cape Cod chronicles Henry David Thoreau’s journey of discovery along this evocative stretch of Massachusetts coastline, during which time he came to understand the complex relationship between the sea and the shore. He spent his nights in...
Cape Cod chronicles Henry David Thoreau’s journey of discovery along this evocative stretch of Massachusetts coastline, during which time he came to understand the complex relationship between the sea and the shore. He spent his nights in...
Author
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Formats
Description
"An investigative reporter tells the story of a wrongfully accused black sharecropper who was sentenced to die three different times for a murder he did not commit, shedding an informative light on America's past and future, as well as its present."--
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
In this scathing book, the author produced a landmark study of affluent American society that exposes, with brilliant ruthlessness, the habits of production and waste that link invidious business tactics and barbaric social behavior. Veblen's analysis of the evolutionary process sees greed as the overriding motive in the modern economy, and with an impartial gaze he examines the human cost paid when social institutions exploit the consumption of unessential...
Author
Series
Publisher
David R. Godine · Publisher
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric was the definitive guide to the use of rhetorical devices in English. It became a best-seller in its field, with over 20,000 copies in print. Here now is the natural sequel, Farnsworth's Classical English Metaphor-the most entertaining and instructive book ever written about the art of comparison. A metaphor compares two things that seem unalike. Lincoln was a master of the art (A house divided against itself...
Author
Publisher
Yale University Press
Language
English
Description
In this compact yet comprehensive history of ancient Greece, Thomas R. Martin brings alive Greek civilization from its Stone Age roots to the fourth century BC. Focusing on the development of the Greek city-state and the society, culture, and architecture of Athens in its Golden Age, Martin integrates political, military, social, and cultural history in a book that will appeal to students and general readers alike. Now in its second edition, this...
Author
Publisher
Random House
Pub. Date
[1996]
Language
English
Description
Plato called it "daimon," the Romans "genius," the Christians "guardian angel"; today we use such terms as "heart," "spirit," and "soul." While philosophers and psychologists from Plato to Jung have studied and debated the fundamental essence of our individuality, our modern culture refuses to accept that a unique soul guides each of us from birth, shaping the course of our lives. In this extraordinary bestseller, James Hillman presents a brilliant...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
In Boston, art dealer and sleuth Fred Taylor comes upon a fragment of canvas recently cut from an 18th Century painting and depicting a squirrel on a chain. As Taylor seeks the rest of the painting--thought to be the work of an important painter--he comes across a con artist and a murder. By the author of Harmony in Flesh and Black.
Author
Publisher
Pegasus Books
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
"Over two thousand years ago one of the greatest military leaders in history almost destroyed Rome. Hannibal, a daring African general from the city of Carthage, led an army of warriors and battle elephants over the snowy Alps to invade the very heart of Rome's growing empire. But what kind of person would dare to face the most relentless imperial power of the ancient world? How could Hannibal, consistently outnumbered and always deep in enemy territory,...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
11 Days in December tells the dramatic story of one of the grimmest points of World War II and its Christmas Eve turn toward victory. In December 1944, the Allied forces thought their campaign for securing Europe was in its final stages. But Germany had one last great surprise attack still planned, leading to some of the most intense fighting in World War II: the Battle of the Bulge. After ten days of horrific weather conditions and warfare, General...
Author
Publisher
Lyons Press, an imprint of Globe Pequot Press
Pub. Date
[2014]
Language
English
Description
Washington, DC, gleams with stately columns and neoclassical temples, a pulsing hub of political power and prowess. But for decades it was one of the worst excuses for a capital city the world had ever seen. Before America became a world power in the twentieth century, Washington City was an eyesore at best and a disgrace at worst. Unfilled swamps, filthy canals, and rutted horse trails littered its landscape. Political bosses hired hooligans and...
Author
Publisher
Knopf
Pub. Date
1995.
Language
English
Description
In his poetry Walt Whitman set out to encompass all of America and in so doing heal its deepening divisions. This magisterial biography demonstrates the epic scale of his achievement, as well as the dreams and anxieties that impelled it, for it places the poet securely within the political and cultural context of his age.
Combing through the full range of Whitman's writing, David Reynolds shows how Whitman gathered inspiration from every stratum...
Author
Publisher
Da Capo Press
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
In a critical and little-known chapter of early American history, author Harlow Giles Unger tells how a fearless young Kentucky lawyer threw open the doors of Congress during the nation's formative years and prevented dissolution of the infant American republic.
The only freshman congressman ever elected Speaker of the House, Henry Clay brought an arsenal of rhetorical weapons to subdue feuding members of the House of Representatives and established...