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Pride and Prejudice by
When Elizabeth first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; while he struggles to remain indifferent to her good looks and lovely mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows the folly of judging by first impressions and superbly evokes the friendships, gossip and snobberies of provincial middle class life.This edition includes a new chronology, additional suggestions for further reading and the original Penguin Classics introduction by Tony Tanner.
Bless Me, Ultima by
Exquisite prose and wondrous storytelling have helped make Rudolfo Anaya the father of Chicano literature in English. Indeed, Anaya's tales fairly shimmer with the haunting beauty and richness of his culture. The winner of the Pen Center West Award for Fiction for his unforgettable novel Alburquerque, Anaya is perhaps best loved for his classic bestseller, Bless Me, Ultima... Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will probe the family ties that bind and rend him, and he will discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past-a mythic legacy as palpable as the Catholicism of Latin America. And at each life turn there is Ultima, who delivered Tony into the world...and will nurture the birth of his soul.
The Dutchman and The Slave by
Centered squarely on the Negro-white conflict, both Dutchman and The Slave are literally shocking plays--in ideas, in language, in honest anger. They illuminate as with a flash of lightning a deadly serious problem--and they bring an eloquent and exceptionally powerful voice to the American theatre. Dutchman opened in New York City on March 24, 1964, to perhaps the most excited acclaim ever accorded an off-Broadway production and shortly thereafter received the Village Voice's Obie Award. The Slave, which was produced off-Broadway the following fall, continues to be the subject of heated critical controversy.
Mythologies by
"No denunciation without its proper instrument of close analysis," Roland Barthes wrote in his preface to Mythologies. There is no more proper instrument of analysis of our contemporary myths than this book-one of the most significant works in French theory, and one that has transformed the way readers and philosophers view the world around them.Our age is a triumph of codification. We own devices that bring the world to the command of our fingertips. We have access to boundless information and prodigious quantities of stuff. We decide to like or not, to believe or not, to buy or not. We pick and choose. We think we are free. Yet all around us, in pop culture, politics, mainstream media, and advertising, there are codes and symbols that govern our choices. They are the fabrications of consumer society. They express myths of success,well-being, or happiness. As Barthes sees it, these myths must be carefully deciphered, and debunked.What Barthes discerned in mass media, the fashion of plastic, and the politics of postcolonial France applies with equal force to today's social networks, the iPhone, and the images of 9/11. This new edition of Mythologies, complete and beautifully rendered by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, critic, and translator Richard Howard, is a consecration of Barthes's classic-a lesson in clairvoyance that is more relevant now than ever.
Wuthering Heights by
"My greatest thought in living is Heathcliff. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be... Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure... but as my own being." Wuthering Heights is the only novel of Emily Bronte, who died a year after its publication, at the age of thirty. A brooding Yorkshire tale of a love that is stronger than death, it is also a fierce vision of metaphysical passion, in which heaven and hell, nature and society, are powerfully juxtaposed. Unique, mystical, with a timeless appeal, it has become a classic of English literature.
Bodies That Matter by
In Bodies That Matter, Judith Butler further develops her distinctive theory of gender by examining the workings of power at the most "material" dimensions of sex and sexuality. Deepening the inquiries she began in Gender Trouble, Butler offers an original reformulation of the materiality of bodies, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the "matter" of bodies, sex, and gender. Butler argues that power operates to constrain "sex" from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex. She offers a clarification of the notion of "performativity" introduced in Gender Trouble and explores the meaning of a citational politics. The text includes readings of Plato, Irigaray, Lacan, and Freud on the formation of materiality and bodily boundaries; "Paris is Burning," Nella Larsen's "Passing," and short stories by Willa Cather; along with a reconsideration of "performativity" and politics in feminist, queer, and radical democratic theory.
Like One of the Family by
Like One of the Family, which provides historical context for Kathryn Stockett's novel, The Help, is comprised of a series of conversations between Mildred, a black domestic, and her friend Marge. They create a vibrant picture of the life of a black working woman in New York in the 1950s.Rippling with satire and humor, Mildred's outspoken accounts capture vividly her white employers' complacency and condescension--and startled reactions to a maid who speaks her mind. As Mildred declares to a patronizing employer that she is not just like one of the family, or explains to Marge how a tricky employer has created a system of "half days off" to cheat her help, we gain a glimpse not only of one woman's day to day struggle, but of her previous ache of racial oppression. A domestic who refuses to exchange dignity for pay, Mildred is an inspiring conversationalist, a dragon slayer in a segregated world. The conversations in the book were first published in Freedom, the newspaper edited by Paul Robeson, and later in the Baltimore Afro-American. The book was originally published in the 1950s by in Brooklyn-based Independence Press, and Beacon Press brought out a new edition of it in 1986 with an introduction by the literary and cultural critic Trudier Harris.
The Awakening by
Kate Chopin's riveting, daring story of one woman's search for personal freedom was so far ahead of its time that its publication in 1899 aroused a storm of controversy violent enough to end its author's career. With an effortless, sure-handed artistry, Chopin tells the story of Edna Pontellier, a young mother and model wife, whose romantic involvement with a young man during a vacation at a seaside resort allows her for the first time to imagine a new, freer life. Upon her return to New Orleans, Edna leaves her husband's home for her own cottage and begins an affair, only to discover that the constraints of social custom may be more powerful than she thought. Contemporary readers and reviewers were shocked by the frank, unapologetic treatment of adultery in The Awakening. The fact that we have the book at all is the most convincing tribute to its enduring, irrespressible power. Introduction by Elaine Showalter (Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)
The House on Mango Street by
Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero. Told in a series of vignettes – sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous – it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.
The Souls of Black Folk by
In this founding work in the literature of black protest, Du Bois eloquently affirms that it is beneath the dignity of a human being to beg for those rights that belong inherently to all mankind. He also charges that the strategy of accommodation to white supremacy would only serve to perpetuate black oppression.
Invisible Man by
Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by
For more than a half century, Father Damien Modeste has served his beloved people, the Ojibwe, on the remote reservation of Little No Horse. Compelled to his task by a direct mystical experience, Father Damien has made enormous sacrifices, and experienced the joys of commitment as well as deep suffering. Now, nearing the end of his life, Father Damien dreads the discovery of his physical identity, for he is a woman who has lived as a man. He imagines the undoing of all that he has accomplished -- sees unions unsundered, baptisms nullified, those who confessed to him once again unforgiven. To complicate his fears, his quiet life changes when a troubled colleague comes to the reservation to investigate the life of the perplexing, difficult, possibly false saint Sister Leopolda. Father Damien alone knows the strange truth of Sister Leopolda's piety, but these facts are bound up in his own secret. In relating his history and that of Leopolda, whose wonder working is documented but inspired, he believes, by a capacity for evil rather than the love of good, Father Damien is forced to choose: Should he reveal all he knows and risk everything? Or should he manufacture a protective history? In spinning out the tale of his life, Father Damien in fact does both. His story encompasses his life as a young woman, her passions, and the pestilence, tribal hatreds, and sorrows passed from generation to generation of Ojibwe. From the fantastic truth of Father Damien's origin as a woman to the hilarious account of the absurd demise of Nanapush, his best friend on the reservation, his story ranges over the span of the century. In a masterwork that both deepens and enlarges the world of her previous novels set on the same reservation, Louise Erdrich captures the essence of a time and the spirit of a woman who felt compelled by her beliefs to serve her people as a priest. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse is a work of an avid heart, a writer's writer, and a storytelling genius.
Mrs. Spring Fragrance and Other Writings by
Reprints stories from Mrs. Spring Fragrance by the first published Asian North American fiction writer
Absalom! Absalom! by
"Read, read, read. Read everything--trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window." --William Faulkner Absalom, Absalom! is Faulkner's epic tale of Thomas Sutpen, an enigmatic stranger who comes to Jefferson, Mississippi, in the early 1830s to wrest his mansion out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. He was a man, Faulkner said, "who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him."
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by
First published in Portuguese in 1968, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated and published in English in 1970. The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire's work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm. With a substantive new introduction on Freire's life and the remarkable impact of this book by writer and Freire confidant and authority Donaldo Macedo, this anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed will inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come. For more information, visit www.pedagogyoftheoppressed.com.
The Black Atlantic by
Afrocentrism. Eurocentrism. Caribbean Studies. British Studies. To the forces of cultural nationalism hunkered down in their camps, this bold hook sounds a liberating call. There is,Paul Gilroy tells us, a culture that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but all of these at once, a black Atlantic culture whose themes and techniques transcend ethnicity and nationality to produce something new and, until now, unremarked. Challenging the practices and assumptions of cultural studies, The Black Atlantic also complicates and enriches our understanding of modernism. Debates about postmodernism have cast an unfashionable pall over questions of historical periodization. Gilroy bucks this trend by arguing that the development of black culture in the Americas arid Europe is a historical experience which can be called modern for a number of clear and specific reasons. For Hegel, the dialectic of master and slave was integral to modernity, and Gilroy considers the implications of this idea for a transatlantic culture. In search of a poetics reflecting the politics and history of this culture, he takes us on a transatlantic tour of the music that, for centuries, has transmitted racial messages and feeling around the world, from the Jubilee Singers in the nineteenth century to Jimi Hendrix to rap. He also explores this internationalism as it is manifested in black writing from the "double consciousness" of W. E. B. Du Bois to the "double vision" of Richard Wright to the compelling voice of Toni Morrison. In a final tour de force, Gilroy exposes the shared contours of black and Jewish concepts of diaspora in order both to establish a theoretical basis for healing rifts between blacks and Jews in contemporary culture and to further define the central theme of his book: that blacks have shaped a nationalism, if not a nation, within the shared culture of the black Atlantic.
Praise by
Former Poet Laureate Robert Hass 1979's "Praise," the writers second volume of poetry.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by
"Extraordinary. A brilliant, painful, and important book." THE NEW YORK TIMES If there was any one man who articulated the anger, the struggle, and the beliefs of African Americans in the 1960s, that man was Malcolm X. His AUTOBIOGRAPHY is the result of a unique collaboration between Alex Haley and Malcolm X, whose voice and philosophy resonate from every page, just as his experience and his intelligence continue to speak to millions.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by
A classic of black literature, it tells with haunting sympathy and piercing immediacy the story of Janie Crawford's evolving sense of self through three marriages.
The Bostonians by
Published in 1886, The Bostonians begins with the arrival in Boston of Basil Ransom, a young Mississippi lawyer in search of a career. Through his cousin, Olive Chancellor, Ransom comes to meet Verena, the beautiful daughter of a charlatan faith-healer and showman. When they hear Verena talk, Olive hopes to win the girl over to the feminist cause, Ransom is attracted to her looks, and a battle for possession of the girl begins.With its discussion of the situation of women and its uncompromising depiction of the city and the media, The Bostonians is a modern novel which is immediately accessible and relevant today.
In the Castle of My Skin by
An autobiographical novel of race and class by one of the leading Black writers of the 20th century.
The Communist Manifesto by
The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes, is one of the most important and influential political polemics ever written.After some four years of collaboration Marx and Engels produced this incisive account of their conception of Communism, in which they envisage a society without classes, private property or a state. The Manifesto claims that the increasing exploitation of industrial workers will produce a global economic crisis, leading to a revolution in which Capitalism is overthrown by the new working class. This vision of Communism provided the theoretical basis of the political systems in Russia, China, Cuba and Eastern Europe, affecting the lives of millions throughout most of the last century.Yet even in today's post-Cold War political landscape, The Communist Manifesto remains a classic text: as a powerful work of literature, as a fundamental historical document, and, most importantly, as an unrivalled depiction of the limitless power of global Capitalism.
Sula by
Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Their devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and Sula has become a pariah. But their friendship ends in an unforgivable betrayal—or does it end? Terrifying, comic, ribald and tragic, Sula is a work that overflows with life.
Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada. by
Premio Nobel de Literatura "El más grande poeta del siglo xx en cualquier idioma". --Gabriel García Márquez Un gran éxito desde el mismo momento de su publicación en 1924 cuando el autor contaba con tan solo diecinueve años, Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada causó un fuerte revuelo en la conservadora sociedad chilena debido a su franco retrato de la relación del autor con dos mujeres. Se convirtió inmediatamente en una de las colecciones de poesía más leídas, estableciendo a Neruda como una de las más singulares voces de la poesía en español del siglo XX. Incluso leído hoy, sigue sorprendiendo por su sincera descripción del amor y el sexo. nbsp; Tan pasional y hermosa como Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada, Cien sonetos de amor incluye algunos de los más sensuales e intensos poemas de Pablo Neruda. Aunque publicada treinta y cinco años más tarde, retiene la ingenuidad y la intensa pasión del joven Neruda, mezclada con la sagaz mirada de un hombre que lo ha visto todo.
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by
From the #1 New York Times bestselling team Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond, the award-winning If You Give a Mouse a Cookie is one of the most beloved children's books of all time. This book is a great first introduction to Mouse, the star of the If You Give series and a perennial favorite among children. And with its spare, rhythmic text and circular tale, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie is perfect for beginning readers and story time! If a hungry little mouse shows up on your doorstep, you might want to give him a cookie. And if you give him a cookie, he'll ask for a glass of milk. He'll want to look in a mirror to make sure he doesn't have a milk mustache, and then he'll ask for a pair of scissors to give himself a trim... Supports the Common Core State Standards.
Chicano! by
This is the companion volume to the critically acclaimed, four-part documentary series of the same title, which is now available on video from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide, When the Rainbow Is Enuf by
From its inception in 1974 to its critical success on Broadway, this work has excited and inspired audiences all over the country. Passionate and fearless, Shange's words reveal what it means to be of color and female in the 20th century. Here is the complete text, with stage directions, of a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem.
Love Poems by
Twenty-five poems celebrating the sensual frontiers of Sexton's time.
The Woman Warrior by
"'No name woman' originally appeared, in slightly different form, in the January 1975 issue of Viva"--T.p. verso.
Down These Mean Streets by
Thirty years ago Piri Thomas made literary history with this lacerating, lyrical memoir of his coming of age on the streets of Spanish Harlem. Here was the testament of a born outsider: a Puerto Rican in English-speaking America; a dark-skinned morenito in a family that refused to acknowledge its African blood. Here was an unsparing document of Thomas's plunge into the deadly consolations of drugs, street fighting, and armed robbery--a descent that ended when the twenty-two-year-old Piri was sent to prison for shooting a cop. As he recounts the journey that took him from adolescence in El Barrio to a lock-up in Sing Sing to the freedom that comes of self-acceptance, faith, and inner confidence, Piri Thomas gives us a book that is as exultant as it is harrowing and whose every page bears the irrepressible rhythm of its author's voice. Thirty years after its first appearance, this classic of manhood, marginalization, survival, and transcendence is available in an anniversary edition with a new Introduction by the author.
The House of Mirth by
In The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton depicts the glittering salons of Gilded Age New York with precision and wit, even as she movingly portrays the obstacles that impeded women's choices at the turn of the century. The beautiful, much-desired Lily Bart has been raised to be one of the perfect wives of the wealthy upper class, but her spark of character and independent drive prevents her from becoming one of the many women who will succeed in those circles. Though her desire for a comfortable life means that she cannot marry for love without money, her resistance to the rules of the social elite endangers her many marriage proposals. As Lily spirals down into debt and dishonor, her story takes on the resonance of classic tragedy. One of Wharton's most bracing and nuanced portraits of the life of women in a hostile, highly ordered world, The House of Mirth exposes the truths about American high society that its denizens most wished to deny. With an introduction by Pamela Knights. (Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
Gem of the Ocean by
"No one except perhaps Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams has aimed so high and achieved so much in the American theater."--John Lahr, The New Yorker "A swelling battle hymn of transporting beauty. Theatergoers who have followed August Wilson's career will find in Gem a touchstone for everything else he has written."--Ben Brantley, The New York Times "Wilson's juiciest material. The play holds the stage and its characters hammer home, strongly, the notion of newfound freedom."--Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune Gem of the Ocean is the play that begins it all. Set in 1904 Pittsburgh, it is chronologically the first work in August Wilson's decade-by-decade cycle dramatizing the African American experience during the 20th century--an unprecedented series that includes the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays Fences and The Piano Lesson. Aunt Esther, the drama's 287-year-old fiery matriarch, welcomes into her Hill District home Solly Two Kings, who was born into slavery and scouted for the Union Army, and Citizen Barlow, a young man from Alabama searching for a new life. Gem of the Ocean recently played across the country and on Broadway, with Phylicia Rashad as Aunt Esther. Earlier in 2005, on the completion of the final work of his ten play cycle-surely the most ambitious American dramatic project undertaken in our history-August Wilson disclosed his bout with cancer, an illness of unusual ferocity that would eventually claim his life on October 2. Fittingly the Broadway theatre where his last play will be produced in 2006 has been renamed the August Wilson Theater in his honor. His legacy will animate the theatre and stir the human heart for decades to come.
Uncle Tom's Children by
Set in the American Deep South, each of the powerful novellas collected here concerns an aspect of the lives of black people in the post-slavery era, exploring their resistance to white racism and oppression. Originally published in 1938, Uncle Tom's Children was the first book from Richard Wright, who would continue on to worldwide fame as the author of numerous works, most notably the acclaimed novel Native Son and his autobiography, Black Boy.
American Indian Stories by
Zitkala-Ša (Gertrude Bonnin) was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition. Impressions of an Indian Childhood describes her first eight yeas on the Yankton Reservation, where she was born in 1876. Her schooling in Indiana revealed a gift for writing that led in 1901 to the publication of Old Indian Legends, also a Bison Book. For the rest of her rife, this Sioux was in the poignant but creative position of trying to bridge the gap between her own culture and the dominant white one, unable to return fully to the former or to enter fully into the latter. These pieces, largely autobiographical, were first collected and published in 1921. With their reissue, Zitkala-Ša takes her rightful place among such native interpreters of Sioux culture as Charles A. Eastman and Luther Standing Bear .
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