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'If you're coming to Lurie for the first time, you must begin with
the Pulitzer Prize-winning Foreign Affairs' Guardian Vinnie Miner
is an American professor of children's literature on her way to
London for six months of research. Settling into her aeroplane seat
she finds herself accosted by Chuck, a brash engineer wearing
cowboy boots. She never imagines she'll see him again. But wet,
windy London turns out to be the setting for fresh beginnings, and
for Vinnie, a place to take up space, breathe the air, and to
refuse to become a minor character in one's own life. Foreign
Affairs is a comic, heart-wrenching masterpiece of unexpected
romance. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY AMANDA CRAIG
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Lolly Willowes (Paperback)
Sylvia Townsend Warner; Introduction by Alison Lurie
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R476
R393
Discovery Miles 3 930
Save R83 (17%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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In "Lolly Willowes," Sylvia Townsend Warner tells of an aging
spinster's struggle to break way from her controlling family--a
classic story that she treats with cool feminist intelligence,
while adding a dimension of the supernatural and strange. Warner is
one of the outstanding and indispensable mavericks of
twentieth-century literature, a writer to set beside Djuna Barnes
and Jane Bowles, with a subversive genius that anticipates the
fantastic flights of such contemporaries as Angela Carter and
Jeanette Winterson.
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
Virginia Miner, a fifty-something, unmarried tenured professor, is
in London to work on her new book about children's folk rhymes.
Despite carrying a U.S. passport, Vinnie feels essentially English
and rather looks down on her fellow Americans. But in spite of
that, she is drawn into a mortifying and oddly satisfying affair
with an Oklahoman tourist who dresses more Bronco Billy than Beau
Brummel.
Also in London is Vinnie's colleague Fred Turner, a handsome, flat
broke, newly separated, and thoroughly miserable young man trying
to focus on his own research. Instead, he is distracted by a
beautiful and unpredictable English actress and the world she
belongs to.
Both American, both abroad, and both achingly lonely, Vinnie and
Fred play out their confused alienation and dizzying romantic
liaisons in Alison Lurie's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Smartly
written, poignant, and witty, "Foreign Affairs" remains an enduring
comic masterpiece.
"A splendid comedy, very bright, brilliantly written in a confident
and original manner. The best book by one of our finest
writers."
-Elizabeth Hardwick
"There is no American writer I have read with more constant
pleasure and sympathy. . . . "Foreign Affairs" earns the same shelf
as Henry James and Edith Wharton."
-John Fowles
"If you manage to read only a few good novels a year, make this one
of them."
-"USA Today"
"An ingenious, touching book."
-"Newsweek"
"A flawless jewel."
-"Philadelphia Inquirer"
Brian and Erica Tate appear to have every advantage in life:
academic careers, two children, nice friends and money. But when
Brian begins an affair with one of his students the disintegration
of their lives is swift and shocking. Things spiral when a protest
against a sexist professor at the university ramps up and Brian,
hopelessly compromised by split loyalties, gets caught up in the
action. Can the Tates marriage survive? Lurie skewers both sides in
this brilliant campus satire of 1960s feminism, parenthood,
infidelity and academic pomposity. 'Her humour is a delight and she
writes with an almost unholy relish' Irish Times
Jenny has devoted her life to her husband, the famous naturalist
Wilkie Walker. But this year, as winter comes on, Wilkie seems
distant and depressed. In desperation Jenny persuades him to visit
Key West, but the sun and tropical scenery do nothing to cheer him
up. As he grows even stranger, Jenny becomes involved with some
intriguing local characters including Gerry, an ex-beatnik poet,
and Lee, the dramatically attractive manager of a women-only guest
house. Wife, secretary, confidante, housekeeper - might Jenny at
last break free from her role as Wilkie's support act? WITH A NEW
PREFACE FROM ALISON LURIE 'Full of sparkish - indeed Muriel
Sparkish - observations and gently subversive wit... Lurie
beautifully handles the ecstatic liberation of lesbian love'
Independent
'Marvellous entertainment' Sunday Times Just married and newly
arrived in Los Angeles are Paul and Katherine Cattleman. Paul
responds immediately to the sunny, sprawling cosmopolitan city but
to Katherine the main impression is of dirt and smog. Paul explores
his surroundings and discovers Ceci, a girl who could be the
incarnation of the city's uninhibited ways, while Katherine meets
Iz a psychiatrist who recognises her unhappiness and sets out to
help her. Under the bright west coast sun, the city begins to
affect the couple in separate, subtle but significant ways, shining
new light on their marriage with moving, funny and unexpected
consequences.
'Delightful... Her characters are, as always, wonderfully
imperfect' New York Review of Books Alan has changed because he's
injured his back. Pain has altered his appearance and made him
glum, demanding and resentful. His wife Jane has to do everything
for him - fetching, carrying, shopping, cooking, even dressing and
undressing him. Sometimes she longs for escape. Delia is a writer
and researcher specialising in fairy tales - she is, in her own
estimation, a 'Great Artist'. Her husband, Henry, manages her every
need making certain Delia gets everything she desires including
spectacular doses of adulation. Can Delia coax Alan out of his
grumpiness? Can Henry stop Jane feeling guilty? Can the two couples
break out of their fixed roles? 'I am re-reading with enormous
delight and greed. If you're new to [Lurie], lucky you:
marvellously astute comedies of social, moral and sexual manners,
her witty exuberance is nothing short of inspirational' Helen
Simpson
Over the years, Alison Lurie has earned a devoted readership for
her satiric wit and storytelling acumen. With "Truth and
Consequences," described by the "New Yorker" as "a comedy of
adultery with a comedy of academia thrown in," Lurie returns with a
modern social satire that recalls the best of David Lodge and Mary
McCarthy as well as her own popular university novels "The War
Between the Tates" and "Foreign Affairs." BACKCOVER: "A wily,
shapely tale of love's labors lost."
-"Elle"
"A wry, insightful, thoroughly enjoyable tale about how men and
women choose their demons and their lovers, and the sacrifices
they're willing to make for both."
-"The Atlanta Journal-Constitution"
"Delightful . . . Her characters are, as always, wonderfully
imperfect."
-"The New York Review of Books"
Sleeping beauties? Not Clever Gretchen or Kate Crackernuts or Manka
or any of the other young heroines in this wonderful collection of
folktales. Active, witty, brave, and resourceful, these girls and
young women can fight and hunt, defeat giants, answer riddles,
outwit the Devil, and rescue friends and family from all sorts of
dangers and evil spells. These stories and many others like them
were gathered by scholars from all the countries of Europe, but are
usually left out of the popular collections of the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, when women were supposed to be
beautiful, innocent, and passive.
In "Don't Tell the Grown-Ups," one of our wittiest and most astute
cultural commentators explores the world of children's literature
-- from Lewis Carroll to Dr. Seuss, from classic fairy tales to
A.A. Milne, from Beatrix Potter to J.R.R. Tolkien -- and shows that
many of the most enduring books for children share a surprising
quality: they challenge rather than uphold respectable adult
values.
The author of "The War Between the Tates" and the Pulitzer
prize-winning "Foreign Affairs" now brings her irresistible wit to
the ghost story.
In nine spooky tales, Alison Lurie writes of women haunted by
ghosts both literal and metaphorical: A woman about to marry Mr.
Right is visited by the spirit of his first wife; a dead fiance
haunts a foreign service officer every time she has an intimate
moment with another man; the ghost of a girl in a Halloween costume
disconcerts the perfect housewife. A secretary on a diet begins to
see obese people everywhere she looks; a self-conscious poet is
shadowed by her intrusive doppelganger; and a capricious,
malevolent spirit seems to have inhabited an acquisitive matron's
prized piece of furniture.
Delightfully strange and beautifully told, these nine tales show
Alison Lurie at her luminous best.
'A brilliant and seemingly effortless accomplishment...steady
uninterrupted delight' Sunday Telegraph Faculty wife Emily
Stockwell Turner is beautiful, rich, and principled. However, five
years in a marriage devoid of passion is enough to propel Emmy,
despite her principles, into an affair with a silver-tongued
self-confessed libertine. Her husband, a dull, hard-working
lecturer, suspecting everyone but the right man, sends himself half
mad with jealousy. The shocking, unforeseen consequences of their
affair shatter Emmy's most cherished delusions about friendship,
romance, and the ties that bind. 'Lurie is and really is,
different. She writes with great elegance, as frostily clear as the
climate she describes; and with sharp intelligence piercing through
every sentence. She is very funny as well' Observer
An artists' colony is a false paradise for a frustrated writer in
this "witty, knowing, and perceptive" novel from a Pulitzer
Prize-winning author (The New Yorker). The mansion is called
Illyria, but for the writers and artists who flock there each
summer, it's a Garden of Eden where every artistic curiosity is
explored. Away from family, friends, and ordinary responsibilities,
the creative spirit can flower, nurtured by the company of other
artistic souls. Janet Belle Smith's husband doesn't understand why
she can't write at home--or really, for that matter, why she must
write at all--but for Janet, the reason is clear: Only in Illyria
can she be herself. But as the writer mingles with her fellow
artists--including a Marxist novelist, a Beat poet, and a wild-man
sculptor--she begins to fear that the "real" her isn't who she
expected, and Illyria is not the peaceful kingdom it appears to be.
This creative paradise is rotting from the inside out, and if Janet
doesn't move quickly, she'll be trapped in the rubble when the
walls come tumbling down. From the National Book Award-shortlisted
author of Foreign Affairs, this humorous story "goes down
pleasantly, like a glass of lemonade" (The New York Times).
Are some of the world's most talented children's book authors essentially children themselves? In this engaging series of essays, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alison Lurie considers this theory, exploring children's classics from many eras and relating them to the authors who wrote them, including Little Women author Louisa May Alcott and Wizard of Oz author Frank Baum, as well as Dr. Seuss and Salman Rushdie. Analyzing these and many others, Lurie shows how these gifted writers have used children's literature to transfigure sorrow, nostalgia, and the struggles of their own experiences.
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