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Redemption: The Life of Henry Roth, by Steven G. Kellman '67 (W.W. Norton, 2005) is a portrait of one of the giants of American literature. The book was the subject of an extensive article in the July 25 issue of The New Yorker .
The Roth enigma is plumbed in Steven G. Kellman's intriguing Redemption: The Life of Henry Roth , the fullest account yet of a major literary figure whose career - including his unlikely comeback in the 1990s as an ailing octogenarian - defies easy explanation.
"Biography is built on the premise of a coherent, continuous self," writes Kellman, a professor of comparative literature at University of Texas at San Antonio. Followers of Sigmund Freud will have a field day with the psychological accounting Kellman offers. He draws on Roth's confession of self-loathing, stemming in part from his incestuous relationship with his sister, Rose, beginning when she was 14 and he just two years older. |
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Canadian Short Stories, edited by Donna Bennett '68, and Russell Brown '68 (Penguin, 2005), is a volume of 39 classic and contemporary stories by Canadian authors. |
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For Seeing Eye Dogs Only, by Robert S. Swiatek '72 MS (Aventine Press, 2005) , gives a humorous look at the lack of intelligence humans display in their words and actions. What people say and do and what you read on signs and products can be very funny. This book does not discriminate. Actors, athletes, clergy, teachers, lawyers, politicians, technicians and criminal trainees have all been mentioned because of their temporary brain deficiencies. |
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Pennyweight Windows: New and Selected Poems, by Donald Revell '75 (Alice James Books, 2005) was one of only seven poetry titles reviewed in the May 9, 2005, issue of TIME Magazine, which said," It takes guts to write more poems about peace, war, God and children, but Revell's are so fresh, it's as if he's the first person ever to do it". A stunning 240-page retrospective.
Revell also was featured in American Poetry Review. |
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| Bill Decker '83 has published two underground best selling booklets under the Lessons from the Road series. One is "Global Business 1-2-3" and the other is Start Up Tips, 1-2-3. The second is geared for the entrepreneur, or the growing company. The book contain nuggets of truth learned from 2 dozen start ups. |
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Sniper, by Bonnie ( Bedford ) Culver '85 is a play produced in California , New Jersey and New York based on an actual event, the first of the school shootings, which happened in Bonnie's hometown of Olean in 1974.
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Modern Rhetorical Criticism, third edition, by Suzanne Daughton '85 and Rod Hart (Allyn and Bacon, 2005) shows readers how to examine and interpret rhetorical situations, ideas, arguments, structure and style. The book covers a wide range of critical techniques, from cultural and dramatistic analysis to feminist and Marxist approaches. A wealth of original criticism demonstrates how to analyze such diverse forms as junk mail, congressional debates, and traffic regulations, as well as literature. |
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The Six-Spoke Approach to Golf, by Julie Lumpkin Moran '85 with Tom Patri, one of America 's leading instructors (Lyons Press, 2005) is a complete blueprint for taking the game to its highest level. Tom Patri is one of Golf Magazine's Top 100 Teachers in America. His knowledge, scope of material, and clarity of presentation, along with his extensive teaching background and playing record, make this book a 'must have' for golf professionals, teachers, serious golfers, and students of all abilities." |
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The Dynamite Fiend: The Chilling Tale of a Confederate Spy, Con Artist and Mass Murderer, by Ann Larabee '88 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Before airplanes, ocean liners routinely carried hundreds of passengers, and they were ideal tools for some nefarious plots. Larabee charts the life of Scottish-Canadian Alexander Keith, the fiend of the title who, in 1875, put an end to "an age of innocence that could not yet conceive of malevolent designs to destroy thousands of unwitting human beings in a single horrific stroke." A genteel con man, absentee husband and former aid to Confederate blockade runners, Keith engineered the explosion that killed 81 people on a German ship in what was reviled as one of the century's worst crimes. The book begins with an evocative account of the catastrophe, then backtracks to the beginning of Keith's life to decipher how he came to be a "gentleman bomber." |
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(Re)Writing Craft: Composition, Creative Writing, and the Future of English Studies, by Timothy Mayers MA '90 ( University of Pittsburgh Press , 2005) is published as part of the press's series on composition, literacy and culture. The book focuses on the gap that exists in many English departments between creative writers and compositionists on one hand, and literary scholars on the other, in an effort to radically transform the way English studies are organized and practiced today. In proposing a new form of writing he calls "craft criticism," Mayers, himself a compositionist and creative writer, explores the connections between creative writing and composition studies programs, which currently exist as separate fields within the larger and more amorphous field of English studies. If creative writing and composition studies are brought together in productive dialogue, they can, in his view, succeed in inverting the common hierarchy in English departments that privileges interpretation of literature over the teaching of writing. |
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The Grace That Keeps This World, by Tom Bailey '91 (Random House, 2005) is a first novel about fathers and sons, tough love and compassion, the bonds of community, and the solace of belief.
Gary and Susan Hazen are natives of Lost Lake, a hardscrabble town in the Adirondacks, high school sweethearts who have raised their two sons on the satisfaction of living off the land. At this suspenseful narrative's outset, Susan recollects a fateful day, the start of deer hunting season, hinting that some tragedy has struck her loving but combustible family. Gary is a highly principled and respected woodsman and hunter, but his self-righteousness brings him into conflict with his sons. Both young men have secrets that will strain the family fabric, and together father and sons weave a tangle of intention and circumstance that will culminate in an act that will test their power to survive. |
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Encyclopedia of Women's Autobiography, co-edited by Jo Malin PhD '95 and Victoria Boynton PhD '95 (Greenwood Press, 2005) contains nearly 200 alphabetically arranged entries by more than 130 expert contributors. The entries cover individual writers and major works, particular autobiographical genres, national and ethnic autobiographical traditions, and special issues, themes, and terms related to women's autobiography. |
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Let it Rain Coffee by Angie Cruz '96 (Simon & Schuster, 2005) chronicles the struggles of a multigenerational Dominican family living in Washington Heights - the Manhattan neighborhood where Cruz's debut novel, Soledad, was set. The book flips between the 1960s and the 1990s, and from the Dominican Republic to New York .
I was born and raised in Awshington Heights," said Cruz. "I grew up on a block where all my family lived - I had my grandmother, I had my cousins, I had my mom. To me, it always felt like a community. No matter where I went, I would bump into people I knew." Similar characters sprouted up in her fiction. |
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A Field Negroes Handbook, by Napoleon Wells '02 (iUniverse, 2005) takes a hard look at issues of manhood, fidelity, responsibility and survival within the African American community. Written in prose, poetry and essay formats A Field Negroes Handbook has the feel of a journey on a winding road where hard questions are posed, difficult observations are made and answers are offered. How does a young Black man view the world around him and his place in his community? A Field Negroes Handbook explores what that viewpoint may be. |
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