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The ten brilliant women who are the focus of Sharp came from
different backgrounds and had vastly divergent political and
artistic opinions. But they all made a significant contribution to
the cultural and intellectual history of America and ultimately
changed the course of the twentieth century, in spite of the men
who often undervalued or dismissed their work. These ten
women--Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy,
Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Renata Adler,
and Janet Malcolm--are united by what Dean calls "sharpness," the
ability to cut to the quick with precision of thought and wit.
Sharp is a vibrant depiction of the intellectual beau monde of
twentieth-century New York, where gossip-filled parties at night
gave out to literary slugging-matches in the pages of the Partisan
Review or the New York Review of Books. It is also a passionate
portrayal of how these women asserted themselves through their
writing in a climate where women were treated with extreme
condescension by the male-dominated cultural establishment. Mixing
biography, literary criticism, and cultural history, Sharp is a
celebration of this group of extraordinary women, an engaging
introduction to their works, and a testament to how anyone who
feels powerless can claim the mantle of writer, and, perhaps,
change the world.
A Diamond in the Dust is a fictionalised account of the life of
Charles I from his birth to the age of twenty-eight. It shows
England's most maligned monarch, Charles I, as he really was.
Dominated by his debauched father, James I, he grew up a diffident,
stuttering, dreamy figure, wracked by a crippling disease -
rickets. But he was lifted and defined by his passion for all the
arts, especially theatre and painting. Brutal real-life caught up
with him, however, spinning him at the centre of a whirlwind of
love, art, war and even murder, as he struggled unsuccessfully to
keep control of his life and his kingdom. This first novel in the
trilogy The Stuarts: Love, Art, War, shows Charles I growing up and
finding love. It puts the vilified king in a different light. Under
the wing of his precocious sister Elizabeth he blossoms and his
interest in culture and the arts grows into a passion or some would
say an obsession.
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Zap: The Interviews (Paperback)
Gary Groth, Michael Dean; Introduction by Bob Levin
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R993
R892
Discovery Miles 8 920
Save R101 (10%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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The definitive Comics Journal interviews with the cartoonists
behind Zap Comix, featuring: Supreme 1960s
counterculture/underground artist Robert Crumb on how acid
unleashed a flood of Zap characters from his unconscious; Marxist
brawler Spain Rodriguez on how he made the transition from the Road
Vultures biker gang to the exclusive Zap cartoonists club; Yale
alumnus Victor Moscoso and Christian surfer Rick Griffin on how
their poster-art psychedelia formed the backdrop of the 1960s San
Francisco music scene; Savage Id-choreographer S. Clay Wilson on
how his dreams insist on being drawn; Painter and Juxtapoz-founder
Robert Williams on how Zap #4 led to 150 news-dealer arrests;
Fabulous, Furry, Freaky Gilbert Shelton on the importance of
research; Church of the Subgenius founder Paul Mavrides on getting
a contact high during the notorious Zap jam sessions; and much
more. In these career-spanning interviews, the Zap contributors
open up about how they came to create a seminal, living work of
art."
Set in Boston and London over sixteen years, True Freedom is a
panoramic account of how America came to fight Britain for its
freedom in the eighteenth century. The Boston scene is set though
vignettes about the people who shaped its history. Thomas
Hutchinson, sixth generation of Boston aristocracy, whose wealth is
seeming unassailable. Self-taught medical doctor Thomas Young an
idealist meeting his hero Samuel Adams, who is determined to have
his revolution. Their Sons of Liberty and Mohucks play a key role,
all the time supported from London by the radical politician John
Wilkes. True Freedom is full of vivid period details, you can
almost smell parliament in London or hear the clerks scribbling
away in the American Department. So too, in Boston, you can picture
Faneuil Hall, experience the might of the British navy in the
harbour, and feel the grit and determination of the Boston people
to defy parliament in London. Together they form facets of the main
character: the Boston uprising. The facts are all there but by
focussing on personal relationships especially the one between the
brothers Pownall, Michael Dean takes us right to the heart of
identity and sovereignty.
The White Crucifixion starts with Chagall's difficult birth in
Vitebsk 1887, in the present-day Belarus, and tells the unlikely
story of how the eldest son of a herring schlepper became enrolled
in art school where he quickly gained a reputation as `Moyshe, the
painting wonder'. The novel paints an authentic picture of a
Russian town divided by belief and wealth, rumours of pogroms never
far away, yet bustling with talented young artists. In 1913 Chagall
relished the opportunity to move to Paris to take up residence in
the artist colony The Hive (La Ruche). The Yiddish-speaking artists
(Ecole Juive) living there were all poor. The Hive had no electric
light, or running water and yet many of its artists were to become
famous, among them Amedeo Modigliani and Osip Zadkine. The novel
vividly portrays the dynamics of an artist colony, its pettiness,
friendships and the constant battle to find the peace and quiet to
work. In 1914 Chagall and Bella make what's supposed to be a
fleeting visit to his beloved Vitebsk, only to get trapped there by
the outbreak of the first world war, the subsequent Russian
revolution, and the establishment of the communist regime which is
increasingly hostile towards artists like Chagall. Yet, Chagall
keeps on painting, and the novel provides a fascinating account of
what inspired some of his greatest painting. He manages to return
to France and is reunited with his paintings only to be thwarted by
yet another world war which proves disastrous for the people he
knew in Vitebsk which include his uncle Neuch, the original
`fiddler on the roof'. The White Crucifixion is a fictionalised
account of the rollercoaster life of one of the most enigmatic
artists of the twentieth century.
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I, Hogarth (Hardcover)
Michael Dean
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R486
R192
Discovery Miles 1 920
Save R294 (60%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Hogarth's epoch-defining paintings and engravings, such as Gin Lane
and The Rake's Progress, are renowned. He was London's painter par
excellence, and supplies the most enduring vision of the eighteenth
century's ebullience, enjoyments and social iniquities. From his
lifelong marriage to Jane Thornhill, his inability to have
children, his time as one of England's best portrait painters, his
old age and unfortunate dip into politics, and ultimately his
death, I, Hogarth is the artist's life through his very own eyes.
Recommended for readers of Peter Ackroyd and Hilary Mantel, this
novel charts Hogarth's personal story in four parts carefully
blending the facts of his life with fiction, beginning with a
childhood spent in a debtor's prison and ending with his death in
the arms of his wife.
From journalist Michelle Dean, winner of the National Book Critics
Circle's 2016 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing,
Sharp combines biography, original research, and critical reading
into a powerful portrait of ten writers who managed to make their
voices heard amidst a climate of sexism and nepotism, from the
1920s to the 1990s. Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, Mary McCarthy,
Hannah Arendt, Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, Janet Malcolm, Renata
Adler, Pauline Kael, and Nora Ephron-these are the main characters
of Sharp. Their lives intertwine. They enable each other and feud,
manufacture unique spaces and voices, and haunt each other. They
form a group united in many ways, but especially by what Dean terms
as 'sharpness', the ability to cut to the quick with precision of
thought and wit, a claiming of power through writing rather than
position. Sharp is a vibrant and rich depiction of the intellectual
beau monde of New York, where gossip-filled parties at night gave
out to literary slanging-matches in the pages of publications like
the Partisan Review or the New York Review of Books, as well as a
carefully considered portrayal of the rise of feminism and its
interaction with the critical establishment. Sharp is for book
lovers who want to read about their favorite writers, lovers of New
Yorker lore, aspiring writers in New York, those interested in the
history of ideas, and of the fray of 20th century debate-and it
will satisfy them all.
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Life on Mars
Meg Amor; Narrated by Michael Dean; Patricia Logan
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R506
Discovery Miles 5 060
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Sharp (Paperback)
Michelle Dean
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R488
R413
Discovery Miles 4 130
Save R75 (15%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Widely praised in hardcover, Sharp is the exhilarating story of ten
exceptional women who used the power of their pens to carve out
space for themselves in a world where men wrote the rules. Dorothy
Parker, Rebecca West, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag,
Pauline Kael, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Renata Adler, and Janet
Malcolm are united by what Dean calls "sharpness," the ability to
cut to the quick with precision of thought and wit. Sharp is a
vibrant depiction of the intellectual beau monde of
twentieth-century New York, where gossip-filled parties at night
gave out to literary slugging-matches in the pages of the Partisan
Review or the New York Review of Books. It is also a passionate
portrayal of how these women asserted themselves through their
writing in a climate where women were treated with extreme
condescension by the male-dominated cultural establishment. Mixing
biography, literary criticism, and cultural history, Sharp is a
testament to how anyone who feels powerless can claim the mantle of
writer, and, perhaps, change the world.
A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week 'This is such a great idea for a
book, and Michelle Dean carries it off, showing us the complexities
of her fascinating, extraordinary subjects, in print and out in the
world. Dean writes with vigor, depth, knowledge and absorption, and
as a result Sharp is a real achievement' Meg Wolitzer, New York
Times Dorothy Parker, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag,
Joan Didion, Nora Ephron and Janet Malcolm are just some of the
women whose lives intertwined as they cut through twentieth-century
cultural and intellectual life in the United States, arguing as
fervently with each other as they did with the men who so often
belittled their work as journalists, novelists, critics and poets.
These women are united by their 'sharpness': an accuracy and
precision of thought and wit, a claiming of power through their
writing. Sharp is a rich and lively portrait of these women and
their world, where Manhattan cocktail parties, fuelled by lethal
quantities of both alcohol and gossip, could lead to high-stakes
slanging matches in the Partisan Review or the New York Review of
Books. It is fascinating and revealing on how these women came to
be so influential in a climate in which they were routinely met
with condescension and derision by their male counterparts.
Michelle Dean mixes biography, criticism and cultural and social
history to create an enthralling exploration of how a group of
brilliant women became central figures in the world of letters,
staked out territory for themselves and began to change the world.
A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week 'This is such a great idea for a
book, and Michelle Dean carries it off, showing us the complexities
of her fascinating, extraordinary subjects, in print and out in the
world. Dean writes with vigor, depth, knowledge and absorption, and
as a result Sharp is a real achievement' Meg Wolitzer, New York
Times Dorothy Parker, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag,
Joan Didion, Nora Ephron and Janet Malcolm are just some of the
women whose lives intertwined as they cut through twentieth-century
cultural and intellectual life in the United States, arguing as
fervently with each other as they did with the men who so often
belittled their work as journalists, novelists, critics and poets.
These women are united by their 'sharpness': an accuracy and
precision of thought and wit, a claiming of power through their
writing. Sharp is a rich and lively portrait of these women and
their world, where Manhattan cocktail parties, fuelled by lethal
quantities of both alcohol and gossip, could lead to high-stakes
slanging matches in the Partisan Review or the New York Review of
Books. It is fascinating and revealing on how these women came to
be so influential in a climate in which they were routinely met
with condescension and derision by their male counterparts.
Michelle Dean mixes biography, criticism and cultural and social
history to create an enthralling exploration of how a group of
brilliant women became central figures in the world of letters,
staked out territory for themselves and began to change the world.
Growing out of recent pedagogical developments in creative writing
studies and perceived barriers to teaching the subject in secondary
education schools, this book creates conversations between
secondary and post-secondary teachers aimed at introducing and
improving creative writing instruction in teaching curricula for
young people. Challenging assumptions and lore regarding the
teaching of creative writing, this book examines new and engaging
techniques for infusing creative writing into all types of language
arts instruction, offering inclusive and pedagogically sound
alternatives that consider the needs of a diverse range of
students. With careful attention given to creative writing within
current standards-based educational systems, Imaginative Teaching
through Creative Writing confronts and offers solutions to the
perceived difficulty of teaching the subject in such environments.
Divided into two sections, section one sees post-secondary
instructors address pedagogical techniques and concerns such as
workshop, revision, and assessment before section two explores
hands-on activities and practical approaches to instruction.
Focusing on an invaluable and underrepresented area of creative
writing studies, this book begins a much-needed conversation about
the future of creative writing instruction at all levels and the
benefits of collaboration across the secondary/post-secondary
divide.
Scientists are deciphering the biology of the tumor cell at a level
of detail that would have been hard to imagine just a decade or so
ago. The development of high-throughput DNA sequencing and genomics
technologies have allowed an understanding of the development,
growth, survival, and spread of cancer cells in the body. From this
information, we now have a basic blueprint or roadmap of how a
single damaged cell can develop into a pre-malignant lesion, a
primary tumor, and finally, a lethal tumor that may spread
throughout the body and resist both medical therapy and host immune
responses. In this book, we provide an overview of our current
understanding of this cancer blueprint, which has been aided both
by the study of familial cancer syndromes, in vitro studies of
cancer cells, and animal models. Three classes of genes have
emerged from these studies: tumor suppressor genes needed for
normal growth control and DNA repair; oncogenes that regulate cell
growth and survival, and epigenetic modifiers, enzymes that
regulate the modification of DNA and the proteins that form
chromatin. Each of these three classes of genes is mutated or
altered at least once in virtually all malignant cancer cells.
Current technologies permit the DNA sequencing of cancer exomes
(coding gene sequencing), whole genomes, transcriptome (all
expressed genes), and DNA methylation profiling. These studies show
that all tumors have unique constellations of mutated, rearranged,
amplified, and deleted genes. Single-cell sequencing further shows
that there is extensive variation in individual cells in the tumor;
that cancers evolve, and have many of the properties of a
multi-cellular entity. Lastly, cancer cells, through mutations in
epigenetic modifiers, can reprogram the genome and unlock entire
developmental and gene expression pathways to adapt and survive in
changing conditions. This reprogramming allows the tumor to elude
the host body's defenses, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and targeted
therapy that we use in cancer treatment. Understanding this cancer
blueprint paves the way for the development of future therapies to
treat and eliminate cancer.
Scientists are deciphering the biology of the tumor cell at a level
of detail that would have been hard to imagine just a decade or so
ago. The development of high-throughput DNA sequencing and genomics
technologies have allowed an understanding of the development,
growth, survival, and spread of cancer cells in the body. From this
information, we now have a basic blueprint or roadmap of how a
single damaged cell can develop into a pre-malignant lesion, a
primary tumor, and finally, a lethal tumor that may spread
throughout the body and resist both medical therapy and host immune
responses. In this book, we provide an overview of our current
understanding of this cancer blueprint, which has been aided both
by the study of familial cancer syndromes, in vitro studies of
cancer cells, and animal models. Three classes of genes have
emerged from these studies: tumor suppressor genes needed for
normal growth control and DNA repair; oncogenes that regulate cell
growth and survival, and epigenetic modifiers, enzymes that
regulate the modification of DNA and the proteins that form
chromatin. Each of these three classes of genes is mutated or
altered at least once in virtually all malignant cancer cells.
Current technologies permit the DNA sequencing of cancer exomes
(coding gene sequencing), whole genomes, transcriptome (all
expressed genes), and DNA methylation profiling. These studies show
that all tumors have unique constellations of mutated, rearranged,
amplified, and deleted genes. Single-cell sequencing further shows
that there is extensive variation in individual cells in the tumor;
that cancers evolve, and have many of the properties of a
multi-cellular entity. Lastly, cancer cells, through mutations in
epigenetic modifiers, can reprogram the genome and unlock entire
developmental and gene expression pathways to adapt and survive in
changing conditions. This reprogramming allows the tumor to elude
the host body's defenses, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and targeted
therapy that we use in cancer treatment. Understanding this cancer
blueprint paves the way for the development of future therapies to
treat and eliminate cancer.
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