Author: Leslie Marmon Silko File Type: epub bNow back in print—a classic work of Native American literature by the bestselling author of CeremonybLeslie Marmon Silkos groundbreaking book Storyteller, first published in 1981, blends original short stories and poetry influenced by the traditional oral tales that she heard growing up on the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico with autobiographical passages, folktales, family memories, and photographs. As she mixes traditional and Western literary genres, Silko examines themes of memory, alienation, power, and identity communicates Native American notions regarding time, nature, and spirituality and explores how stories and storytelling shape people and communities. Storyteller illustrates how one can frame collective cultural identity in contemporary literary forms, as well as illuminates the importance of myth, oral tradition, and ritual in Silkos own work. This edition includes a new introduction by Silko and previously unpublished photographs.

Author: Paul Theroux File Type: epub A richly detailed, darkly hilarious novel of a family held together and torn apart by its narcissistic matriarch To those in her Cape Cod town, Mother is an exemplar of piety, frugality, and hard work. To her husband and seven children, she is the selfish, petty tyrant of Mother Land. She excels at playing her offspring against each other. Her favorite, Angela, died in childbirth only Angela really understands her, she tells the others. The others include the officious lawyer, Fred the uproarious professor, Floyd a pair of inseparable sisters whose devotion to Mother has consumed their lives and JP, the narrator, a successful writer whose work she disparages. As she lives well past the age of 100, her brood struggles with and among themselves to shed her viselike hold on them. Mother Land is a piercing portrait of how a parents narcissism impacts a family. While the particulars of this tale are unique, Theroux encapsulates with acute clarity and wisdom a circumstance that is familiar to legions of readers. And beyond offering the shock and comfort of recognition, Mother Land presents for everyone an engrossing, heartbreaking, and often funny saga of a vast family that bickers, colludes, connives, and ultimately overcomes the painful ties that bind them.ReviewReading Mother Land is like watching a slow-motion car crashMother Land is an exercise in mean-spirited score-settling. Its also funthe clambake in the assisted living facility where (Mother) celebrates her 102nd (birthday) is downright hilariousTheroux possesses a fabulously nasty sense of humorAs for me, I enjoyed Mother Land against my will a version of his cozening, calculating mother can be found in many homes. But I also found a little bit of myself here. Theroux ends up assassinating all of his characters, but I still enjoyed the play. Stephen King, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Delivers what is perhaps his most personal novel an engrossing, emotionally tangled and often merciless examination of family and self his prose succeeds. It excels when evoking the setting and weather. With painterly effect, he ties the Capes harsh winters, muddy springs and splendid summers to the changing moods of his characters relationships. Mother Land is a bittersweet, brutally frank family saga that offers enough redemption to make the journey worth it. SHELF AWARENESS There is a thoroughly wised-up atmosphere Theroux has always been a master at rendering regional accents in the right letters This is indubitably pure Paul Theroux. THE HUDSON REVIEW Detailed, intricate, and dark. LIBRARY JOURNAL Therouxs Mother Land is hilarious and wicked If youve never had a problem parent, Paul Theroux has one for you in his overwritten, overlong yet irresistible new novel, Mother Land devilishly funny Theroux has fashioned an unforgettable character here (two, counting the wonderfully insufferable Floyd) -- and he has given us a family for the ages. THE BUFFALO NEWS Theroux has trafficked in troubled families before But in Mother Land he takes it to a whole new level antic and unpredictable Jays portrait of the verbally extravagant Floyd (He hated a pithy declarative sentence like this one) is a treat, whether theyre feuding or in cahoots Therouxs prose is suitably silky in its insinuations and vicious in its ability to claw... Theroux, fusing anguish and glee as he picks at the same raw scabs for 500-plus pages, evokes something truly memorable a realm many come from, to which some of us have no desire to return. THE BOSTON GLOBE Page by page, his Mother Land is engrossing and amusing, a sharp-eyed domestic comedy of greed, resentment and the ties that strangle The Justus kids are clearly defined characters, each with recognizable tics and traits, but they dont change much over time Without stooping to sentimentality, the resolution of Mother Land is both moving and apt, the comedy and the tragedy deployed in equal measure. PORTLAND PRESS HERALD Paul Theroux ladles a steaming cup of dysfunctional-family chowder in Mother Land. VANITY FAIR The diminutive matriarch of a large Catholic family is the powerful center of Therouxs engaging novel. Theroux creates an unsparing portrait of Mother Therouxs gifts for narrative drive and using darkly humorous descriptive details propel the plot through decades of the fractious lives of middle-aged siblings ceaselessly engaged in insults and rivalry to gain their mothers favor. Mothers 90th birthday party is the hilarious essence of family dysfunction PUBLISHERS WEEKLY As intense and searing a portrait of mother-as-monster as exists in literature A fascinating, minutely observed portrait of family as both dictatorship and closed society, Mother Land is richly written and will enthrall fans. BOOKLIST Therouxs writing is robust as ever KIRKUS REVIEWS About the Author PAUL THEROUXis the author of many highly acclaimed books. His novels include The Lower River and The Mosquito Coast, and his renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Dark Star Safari. He lives in Hawaii and Cape Cod.

Author: Andrew Huddleston File Type: pdf In Nietzsches first book The Birth of Tragedy (1872), cultural renewal is paramount among his concerns. In the person of Richard Wagner, Nietzsche saw someone who might bring together a fragmented and directionless modern society through the creation of tragic festival that, through its mythic content, would allegedly give renewed meaning and purpose to human life. The standard story about Nietzsches philosophical development is that he becomesdisillusioned with this project and his mature philosophy undergoes a radical shift. Instead of reposing his hopes in a broader culture, he comes to occupy himself instead with the fate of a few great individuals, or, at the extreme, perhaps mainly with his own quasi-artistic self-cultivation. On these readings, to theextent that he remains concerned with culture at all, it is only as something whose noxious influence threatens this cadre of elite individuals. Nietzsche on the Decadence and Flourishing of Culture questions this individualist reading that has become prevalent, and develops an alternative interpretation of Nietzsche as a more social thinker who sees collective cultural achievements as no less important. Great individuals are not all that matter. Andrew Huddleston uses Nietzschesperfectionistic ideal of a flourishing culture and his diagnostics of cultural malaise as a point of departure for reconsidering many of the central themes in Nietzsches ethics and social philosophy, as well as for understanding the interconnections with the form of cultural criticism that was part and parcel ofhis distinctive philosophical enterprise.About the Author bAndrew Huddlestonb is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London. He studied as an undergraduate at Brown University and at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He completed his PhD at Princeton University under the supervision of Alexander Nehamas. Prior to coming to Birkbeck, he was a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.

Author: Katie Pavlich File Type: pdf A bloody scandal and its shameless cover-up No scandal is more threatening to the Obama administration than Operation Fast and Furious. While other scandals involve money, Fast and Furious involves lives, including that of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, gunned down with a weapon that the federal government put in the hands of Mexicos narco-terrorists. As shocking as Operation Fast and Furious wasand this book explains, in chilling detail, just what this operation conducted by the ATF, under the supervision of the Justice Department, entailedequally appalling is the blatant cover-up of wrongdoing by the Obama administration. No reporter has been more dogged in tracking down the facts about Fast and Furious than Katie Pavlich. In her stunning new book she revealsThe documents that undermine the White Houses claims of ignorance about Fast and FuriousHow Eric Holder, President Obamas attorney general, has, under oath, repeatedly changed his testimonyThe still mounting death toll from Fast and FuriousThe retaliation against Fast and Furious whistleblowersWhy Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano might be charged with perjuryThe Obama administrations continuing assault on Second Amendment rightsWhy Fast and Furious could be a bigger scandal than WatergateUnraveling the mystery of what Fast and Furious was all about, Katie Pavlich delivers a stunning indictment of a radical administration willing to trample the Constitution and risk lives to achieve its ideological goals. **