This collection of stories set in Wyoming explored common themes of the American West in original ways, found mysticism and magic in everyday events, and portrayed the moving and relatable inner lives of oddballs and loners.
For the plainspoken men and women of these stories, small events trigger sudden shifts in which the ordinary becomes unfamiliar. Cowboys cavort and sheriffs shoot, certainly, but don't let the familiar trapping of your average Western fool you - these short stories are deeply philosophical meditations of the surreality of human existence.
Deutsch, the Director of Chicago's Seminary Co-op Bookstores, meditates on the place that good bookstores occupy in our collective and personal imaginations and how the atmosphere of a good bookstore can lead you to unexpected places, both in your reading and your heart.
From a devoted reader and lifelong bookseller, an eloquent and charming reflection on the singular importance of bookstores
Do we need bookstores in the twenty-first century? If so, what makes a good one? In this beautifully written book, Jeff Deutsch-the former director of Chicago's Seminary Co-op Bookstores, one of the finest bookstores in the world-pays loving tribute to one of our most important and endangered civic institutions. He considers how qualities like space, time, abundance, and community find expression in a good bookstore. Along the way, he also predicts-perhaps audaciously-a future in which the bookstore not only endures, but realizes…
Fiedler's book of literary criticism beautifully articulates the obsessions of our national literature with copious examples and witty analysis. It will change the way you understand American literature, pointing out common touchstones in our novels from the beginning of the nation through the mid-twentieth century (when it was written), with insights that still apply to the books being published today.
Lengthy analyses of Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, and Huckleberry Finn help to illustrate the duplicity with which themes of love and death are treated in American fiction
A rich and captivating novel set amid the witty, high-spirited literary society of 1850s New England, offering a new window on Herman Melville's emotionally charged relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne and how it transformed his masterpiece, Moby-Dick
In the summer of 1850, Herman Melville finds himself hounded by creditors and afraid his writing career might be coming to an end -- his last three novels have been commercial failures, and the critics have turned against him. In despair, Melville takes his family for a vacation to his cousin's farm in the Berkshires, where he meets Nathaniel Hawthorne at a picnic -- and his life turns upside down.
The Whale chronicles the fervent love affair that grows out of that serendipitous afternoon. Already in debt, Melville recklessly borrows money to purchase a local farm in order to remain near Hawthorne, his newfound muse. The two develop a deep connection marked by tensions and estrangements, and feelings both shared and suppressed.
Melville dedicated Moby-Dick to Hawthorne, and Mark Beauregard's novel fills in the story behind that dedication with historical accuracy and exquisite emotional precision, reflecting his nuanced reading of the real letters and journals of Melville, Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and others. An exuberant tale of longing and passion, The Whale captures not only a transformative relationship -- long the subject of speculation -- between two of our most enduring authors but also their exhilarating moment in history, when a community of high-spirited and ambitious writers was creating truly American literature for the first time.
