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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > Essays, journals, letters & other prose works > From 1900 > Reportage & collected journalism
Robert Riley has been a renowned figure in landscape studies for
over fifty years, valued for his perceptive, learned, and highly
entertaining articles, reviews, and essays. Much of Riley's work
originally ran in Landscape, the pioneering magazine at which Riley
succeeded the great geographer J. B. Jackson as editor. The Camaro
in the Pasture is the first book to collect this compelling
author's writing. With diverse topics ranging from science-fiction
fantasies to problems of academic design research, the essays in
this volume cover an entire half-century of Riley's observations on
the American landscape. The essays - several of which are new or
previously unpublished - interpret changing rationales for urban
beautification, the evolution and transformation of the strip, the
development of a global landscape of golf and resorts replacing an
older search for exoticism, and the vernacular landscape as
wallpaper rather than quilt. Ultimately, Riley envisions our future
landscape as a rapidly fluctuating electronic net draped over the
more slowly changing and familiar land- and building-based system.
Throughout, Riley emphasizes the vernacular landscape of
contemporary America - how we have shaped and use it, what it is
becoming, and, above all, how we experience it.
This carefully curated collection of the writings and speeches of
W. McNeil (Mac) Lowry will provide significant information about
and insight into a remarkable period in the second half of the
twentieth century, when the foundations of the arts as they now
exist in the United States were creatively and firmly laid,
primarily through Lowry's penetrating intellectual perspective and
his strategic organizational acumen as Director of The Ford
Foundation's unique Program in Humanities and the Arts. And many of
the fundamental issues he raised and analyzed-why the arts should
be valued and how they are best supported and governed-are no less
pressing today. The significance of the material is framed and
underscored by a foreword by Darren Walker, President of The Ford
Foundation; an enlightening essay on "W. McNeil Lowry, the Arts and
American Society" by the eminent scholar, Stanley Katz; poetic and
powerful tributes to Lowry by Lincoln Kirstein and Peter Zeisler;
and a context-setting introduction by the editor. Given the
substantive variety and depth of the chapters, the volume will be
of interest to a wide range of scholars and students, artists and
administrators, both within and at the intersection of
philanthropy, the arts, society, public policy and history.
Chosen by the American Society of Magazine Editors, the stories in
this anthology include National Magazine Award-winning works of
public interest, reporting, feature writing, and fiction. This
year's selections include Pamela Colloff (Texas Monthly) on the
agonizing, decades-long struggle by a convicted murderer to prove
his innocence; Dexter Filkins (The New Yorker) on the emotional
effort by an Iraq War veteran to make amends for the role he played
in the deaths of innocent Iraqis; Chris Jones (Esquire) on Robert
A. Caro's epic, ongoing investigation into the life and work of
Lyndon Johnson; Charles C. Mann (Orion) on the odds of human
beings' survival as a species; and Roger Angell (The New Yorker) on
aging, dying, and loss. The former infantryman Brian Mockenhaupt
(Byliner) describes modern combat in Afghanistan and its ability
both to forge and challenge friendships; Ta-Nehisi Coates (The
Atlantic) reflects on the complex racial terrain traversed by
Barack Obama; Frank Rich (New York) assesses Mitt Romney's
ambiguous candidacy; and Dahlia Lithwick (Slate) looks at the
current and future implications of an eventful year in Supreme
Court history. The volume also includes an interview on the art of
screenwriting with Terry Southern from The Paris Review and an
award-winning short story by Stephen King published in Harper's
magazine.
This sensational 1941 memoir of life on wartime Europe's frontline
by a trailblazing female reporter is an 'unforgettable' (The Times)
rediscovered classic, introduced by Christina Lamb (who calls her
'the Forrest Gump of journalism'). Paris as it fell to the Nazis
London on the first day of the Blitz Berlin the day Germany invaded
Poland Madrid in the Spanish Civil War Prague during the Munich
crisis Lapland as the Russians attacked Moscow betrayed by the
Germans Virginia Cowles has seen it all. As a pioneering female
correspondent, she reported from the frontline of 1930s Europe into
the Second World War, always in the right place at the right time.
Flinging off her heels under shellfire; meeting Hitler ('an
inconspicuous little man'); gossiping with Churchill by his
goldfish pond; dancing in the bomb-blasted Ritz ... Introduced by
Christina Lamb, Cowles' incredible dispatches make you an
eyewitness to the twentieth century as you have never experienced
it before. 'An amazingly brilliant reporter ... One of the most
engrossing [books] the war has produced.' New York Times Book
Review What readers are saying: The queen of historical
name-dropping Holy cow! What a wonderful find!! Most unexpectedly
great book that I have read in years. Reads like a novel [but] this
is real life. The best book I've read this year ... Exquisitely
written [day-to-day] drama of history ... Breathtakingly fresh. I
can't recommend this book enough. Cowles' voice and humanity are
her greatest assets, but her willingness to be where the action was
- and always find trouble - paid off. A marvel. Her ability to
capture anecdotes and dialogue that offer surprising insights into
historic personages and events is a frequent source of wonder. It
was difficult for me not to drive my family crazy wanting to read
them quotes. The intrepid Virginia Cowles was in the right places
at the right times and connected to the right people. What a life
she led!
William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870) was a novelist, poet, and
essayist and was considered the South's premier literary figure at
the height of his popularity. No less an authority than Edgar Allen
Poe remarked of Simms that "he has surpassed, we think, any of his
countrymen" as a novelist. Simms's literary achievements include
more than twenty major novels, several volumes of poetry, and
biographies of important figures in American history. Perhaps the
least considered parts of Simms's overall body of writings are
those he did for newspapers, the most interesting of which are from
the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Writing War and
Reunion offers a selection of the best of those so that we can
track Simms's thoughts about, and reactions to, the conflict, from
its beginnings through to its conclusion and into the early years
of Reconstruction. These works provide a valuable insight into how
a prominent southern intellectual interpreted and participated in
these momentous events in U.S. history. In the decades following
the Civil War, Simms's reputation suffered a steady decline.
Because of his associations with the antebellum South, slavery, and
Confederate defeat, as well as changes in literary tastes, Simms
came to be regarded as a talented but failed Southern author of a
bygone era. Today a robust scholarly literature exists that has
reexamined Simms, his literary works, and previous scholarly
judgments and finds him to have been an important figure in the
development of nineteenth-century American literature and worthy of
serious study.
The yearly volumes of Censored, in continuous publication since
1976 and since 1995 available through Seven Stories Press, is
dedicated to the stories that ought to be top features on the
nightly news, but that are missing because of media bias and
self-censorship. The top stories are listed democratically in order
of importance according to students, faculty, and a national panel
of judges. Each of the top stories is presented at length,
alongside updates from the investigative reporters who broke the
stories.
The Changing South of Gene Patterson celebrates the work of one of
America's most influential journalists who wrote in a time and
place of dramatic social and political upheaval. The editor of the
Atlanta Constitution from 1960 through 1968, Patterson wrote
directly to his fellow white southerners every day, working to
persuade them to change their ways. His words were so inspirational
that he was asked by Walter Cronkite to read his most famous
column, about the Birmingham church bombing, live on the CBS
Evening News. This volume includes over 120 of Patterson's best
pieces, selected from some 3,200 columns. These columns offer
probing commentary on the crucial issues of race, civil rights,
social justice, and desegregation; some reveal examples of
political and moral leadership, drawn from every corner of southern
culture. Introductory essays, framing Patterson's work as
journalism and literature, place it in the context of southern
history and the evolution of white southern liberalism. Patterson
himself contributes a new essay, reflecting on his life, work, and
times. At a time when protest, violence, and confrontation defined
race relations and even the South itself, Patterson's wise, sane,
humorous, passionate column appeared daily on the Constitution's
editorial page, urging white southerners to become "better than we
are." Speaking as one who "grew up hard" in small-town Georgia,
Patterson could urge change with a conviction and credibility
matched by few others. With enlightened leadership and adherence to
the rule of law, the sky would not fall, Patterson assured his
readers. While black leaders led America toward civil rights and
social justice, writers such as Patterson had the courage to appeal
to the white southern conscience. Unmistakably engaged with his
time and place, Patterson's columns provide a compelling day-to-day
look at the civil rights era as it unfolded.
Sandi Toksvig - broadcaster, writer, actor, and seeker of all
things whimsical, has turned her probing mind to many of the most
intriguing questions of our times in the pages of the Sunday
Telegraph for many years. Now, for the very first time, these
musings have been collected in one hilarious collection. In The
Chain of Curiosity, Sandi takes the reader on a side-splitting
journey through life's peculiarities in a book packed with wit,
wisdom and wonderment. From pondering the joys of World Pencil Day
to examining the intricacies of applause etiquette, and from
tip-toeing around the delicate art of school report vocabulary to
researching the oddest way to meet a sticky end, the tickling
tidbits and intriguing revelations contained within the book will
delight Sandi's fans, both old and new.
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