A book devoted to that mysterious and possibly endangered activity: reading. It starts with the truism, often forgotten, that without the reader no books would exist--and no literature. Noted essayist and anthologist Alberto Manguels takes the "reader" on a fantastic voyage across the continents and centuries to trace the lost chapters the "book" ...
Inspired by the process of creating a library for his fifteenth-century home near the Loire in France, Alberto Manguel, the acclaimed writer on books and reading, has taken up the subject of libraries. 'Libraries', he says, 'have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I've been seduced by their labyrinthine ...
Since his first voyage, as a sailor earning his passage from his native Holland to South America, Cees Nooteboom has never stopped traveling.Now his best travel pieces are gathered in this collection of immense range and depth, informed throughout by the author's humanity and gentle humor. From exotic places such as Isfahan, Gambia, and Mali to ...
This volume contains brief descriptions--including approximate geographical location, relevant wildlife, and climate conditions--for over 1200 of the world most well-know fictional settings--everywhere from Tolkien's Middle Earth and Crichton's Jurassic Park to Coleridge's Xanadu and Defoe's Speranza (where Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked). ...
No one knows if there was a man named Homer, but there is no little doubt that the epic poems assembled under his name form the cornerstone of Western literature. "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," with their incomparable tales of the Trojan War, brace Achilles, Ulysses and Penelope, the Cyclops, the beautiful Helen of Troy, and the petulant gods, are ...
Manguel, one of the preeminent writers on the pleasures of reading, here offers 23 essays on his own experiences between the covers of his favorite books, looking fondly at authors such as Borges, Cortazar, and Chesterton. He also writes of his political interests, his bibliophilia, and his childhood.
Internationally acclaimed anthologist Manguel offers this enjoyable collection of 23 Christmas stories from across the globe with tales by such master storytellers as Alice Munroe, Graham Greene, Truman Capote, and John Cheever.
An acclaimed Argentine writer retells the story of Percy and Mary Shelley in the summer of 1816, when the Shelleys, along with Lord Byron, vacationed at a Swiss villa and Mary wrote FRANKENSTEIN. Told in a mock-Gothic style, the novel takes some outrageous liberties with history but recreates the times with tongue-in-cheek humor and mock ...
What is the role of the storyteller in 21st Century society? Do stories possess the power to change the world we live in? In this most original and stimulating study Alberto Manguel, award winning author of "A History of Reading", sets out to investigate the ways in which stories can lend an identity to a whole society. From "Gilgamesh" to the ...
Published to great acclaim in France in 1993, this collection is not only a delight for Marguerite Yourcenar fans but a welcome port of entry for any reader not yet familiar with the author's lengthier, more demanding works. The sole published work of fiction by Yourcenar yet to be translated into English, this collection includes three stories ...
Alberto Manguel, the Argentinean writer and critic, roams around the world and thinks about what he is reading. In these thoughtful appreciations, he ponders writers as diverse as H.G. Wells and Mavis Gallant, Conan Doyle and Goethe, Margaret Atwood and Sei Shonagon. He also makes offbeat observations, provides the origin of the word "nostalgia," ...
In 1964, a blind writer (and voracious reader) in his sixties approached a sixteen-year old bookstore clerk in Buenos Aires and asked if the latter would be interested in a part-time job reading aloud. The boy accepted, and did so for four years, bringing books by Kipling, Stevenson, Henry James and many others alive three or four times a week. ...
From ancient Greece to the close of the second millennium, the keen scientific eye has been translated over and over into graceful and meaningful texts in which not only the world observed but the act of observation itself is set down for the common reader. By the Light of the Glow-Worm Lamp represents the best of the nature-writing genre in ...
Throughout the ages, writers have created an astonishing diversity of imaginary places, worlds of enchantment, horror and delight. This guidebook takes the reader on a tour of more than 1200 imaginary cities, islands, countries, and contintents, from Homer to the late 1990s. Places visited include Atlantis, Dracula's Castle, Middle Earth, ...
An authoritative collection of short stories on male homosexuality by gay and non-gay writers, including William Faulkner, Anne Beattie, Yukio Mishima, Daphne Du Maurier, Ray Bradbury, John Cheever, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sherwood Anderson, and more.
While traveling, Manguel was struck by how the novel he was reading seemed to reflect the social chaos of the world he was living in. He decided to keep a diary of these moments, reading a book a month and recording his observations, which provides an enthralling adventure in literature and life.
Third in a series of brilliant anthologies edited by Alberto Manguel, Dark Arrows explores the subject of revenge and its undeniable satisfaction, from subtle, sweet revenge to annihilating retaliation. Previously announced in September Advance.
The third annual miscellany which reflects an international selection of work by poets and storytellers from different parts of the world. It includes contributions by Gunter Grass, Marguerite Duras, Jorge Luis Borges, Umberto Eco, Richard Ford, Julio Cortazar and Friedrich Durrenmatt.
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