Anthony Hecht, a critical study, uses a variety of approaches in detailed analyses of the major poems of the 1968 Pulitzer Prize-winner in poetry. The book traces influence, illuminates individual poems via historical and biographical information, and identifies motifs such as «man's painful doubleness» and «extravagance» which define the world Hecht lives in. The poems are viewed as emblematic of the poet's struggle for equilibrium on the plank between the rocks of determinism and the swamp of mysticism.

Anthony Hecht (American University Studies)

Literature & Fiction

German, Norman

History & Criticism

Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers

Natchitoches landowner Pierre Metoyer convinces his slave Marie ThÃ©rÃ¨ze, called âCoincoin,â that they can live in a special world of their own, where the color of their skin does not matter. No Other World, an engrossing fictional account of the extraordinary life of Coincoin, dramatizes the complexities of slavery in the late 1700s. After having four children by another slave, Coincoin became Pierreâs concubine, producing ten children and enhancing the value of his estate by ten slaves. When Metoyer later married a white woman, Coincoin learned a hard lessonâfor her there was no other world than slavery. Later, as a free woman, Coincoin gave birth to her own empire, Yucca Plantation, now called Melrose Plantation, near Natchitoches, Louisiana.

No Other World

Blue Heron Pr

An imaginative reconstruction of the life of the only woman executed in Louisiana's electric chair.A work of alternative history, A Savage Wisdom changes the story of Toni Jo Henry into a redemptive parable-a study in deception and personality transformation.The novel also dramatizes rumors surrounding the young beauty's deathrow dalliance with a handsome young sheriff.In this treatment, Toni Jo escapes the Great Depression and moves toward a world full of promise, only to be dragged into the alluring but dangerous underworld of New Orleans.These maneuvers place the novel in company with In Cold Blood, Truman Capote's book that launched the genre of "faction," fiction based on fact."Here is a powerful, page-turning account of crime and punishment, told in terms of the literary tradition of true crime stories that includes Capote's In Cold Blood and Mailer's The Executioner's Song. Norman German has created a worthy companion to and version of this all-American genre." George Garrett, novelist and poet laureate of Virginia.

A Savage Wisdom

Genre Fiction

Dville Press, LLC

Awarded "Best of 2011" in Arts &amp; Letters by Kirkus Review! 
 Full-color interior GIFT EDITION! (For an economical edition, see "The Word on Words: Black-and-White Classroom Edition" @ $8.99) 
 KIRKUS REVIEW (posted in its entirety) The English language gets pulled up by its roots for purposes of entertainment, enlightenment and vocabulary building in this sprightly linguistic romp. The author, an English professor, introduces readers to some of the knottier words in the language through an approach that mixes analysis, history and lots of engaging anecdotes. His method is to seize on dusty old lexical roots, usually from Latin but also from Greek, Old English, Norse and French, and follow their branchings through the modern English words derived from them, with plenty of lore and intriguing digressions thrown in to make the pedagogy go down easy. He traces the Latin verb spectare (to watch), for example, through its many incarnations, from spectacle to expectant, while tossing in allusions to Shakespeare and Byron and an aside on the evolution of false eyes as defensive camouflage in the animal kingdom. 
 German takes a meandering path through the lexicon, always happy to wander off on oddball excursions to, say, palindromes (“senile felines”), spoonerisms (after Rev. Spooner, who reminded one bridegroom that it’s “kisstomary to cuss the bride”), bizarre phobias (arachibutyrophobia, he says, is the fear of sticky peanut butter), lyrically named bird collectives (exaltations of larks, wisps of snipe and parliaments of owls), unsafe anagrams (rearrange mother-in-law and you get “woman Hitler”) and miscellaneous life lessons (“[n]ever use a poly-syllabic Latin word where a one-syllable Anglo-Saxon word will do”). Along the way, German defines over 1,500 big, troublesome words and reinforces reader retention with engaging exercises, including crossword puzzles and fill-in-the-blank quizzes that require one to insert the words aardvark, blasphemy, cremains, cyborg and eunuch into plausible sentences. It’s a fun read that sparkles with photographs, bright colors and crazy-quilt fonts. But this smorgasbord is still a serious textbook—readers will gain not just a store of factoids, but a sharpened ability to analyze new words and a deeper appreciation for the history and beauty of the language. 
Lively, informative and thoroughly beguiling. 
*End of Review* 
This is NOT your parents’ vocabulary book. 
The Word on Words is a new kind of vocabulary book, combining learning and entertainment like no text you’ve ever read. 
The Word on Words defines 1,500 words in the context of fascinating essays about art, history, literature, philosophy, pop culture, sports, mythology, and more. 
In addition to providing definitions, The Word on Words emphasizes the artistic and playful aspects of language—hence its subtitle, The Play of Language. As my wife says, “You learn better if you have a smile on your face.” 
The book has five major focuses: vocabulary, etymology, mnemonic devices, usage, and the ludic or playful aspects of language. 
The Word on Words is ideal for those preparing for aptitude or admission tests such as the SAT, ACT, and NTE. Great for GED study! 
It’s perfect, too, as a supplemental text in ESL classes directed towards those acquiring English as a second language. 
It’s all in here: humorous explanations of palindromes, acronyms, anagrams, spoonerisms, malapropisms, portmanteau words and even false splitting—the way “a napple” transformed into “an apple”—in the context of revelatory essays about phobias, Mother’s Day, the birds and the bees, Father’s Day, the calendar, neologisms, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the origins of first and last names, the days of the week, and the months of the year: all emphasized by entertaining end-of-chapter tests and crossword puzzles!

The Word on Words: The Play of Language

Reference

Words, Language & Grammar

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Natchitoches landowner Pierre Metoyer convinces his slave Marie Thérèze, called “Coincoin,” that they can live in a special world of their own, where the color of their skin does not matter. No Other World, an engrossing fictional account of the extraordinary life of Coincoin, dramatizes the complexities of slavery in the late 1700s. After having four children by another slave, Coincoin became Pierre’s concubine, producing ten children and enhancing the value of his estate by ten slaves. When Metoyer later married a white woman, Coincoin learned a hard lesson—for her there was no other world than slavery. Later, as a free woman, Coincoin gave birth to her own empire, Yucca Plantation, now called Melrose Plantation, near Natchitoches, Louisiana.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Awarded "Best of 2011" in Arts & Letters by Kirkus Review!  By special request, this BLACK-AND-WHITE “Classroom Edition” is now available. The cover is still COLOR.  KIRKUS REVIEW (posted in its entirety)      The English language gets pulled up by its roots for purposes of entertainment, enlightenment and vocabulary building in this sprightly linguistic romp.   The author, an English professor, introduces readers to some of the knottier words in the language through an approach that mixes analysis, history and lots of engaging anecdotes. His method is to seize on dusty old lexical roots, usually from Latin but also from Greek, Old English, Norse and French, and follow their branchings through the modern English words derived from them, with plenty of lore and intriguing digressions thrown in to make the pedagogy go down easy. He traces the Latin verb spectare (to watch), for example, through its many incarnations, from spectacle to expectant, while tossing in allusions to Shakespeare and Byron and an aside on the evolution of false eyes as defensive camouflage in the animal kingdom.    German takes a meandering path through the lexicon, always happy to wander off on oddball excursions to, say, palindromes (“senile felines”), spoonerisms (after Rev. Spooner, who reminded one bridegroom that it’s “kisstomary to cuss the bride”), bizarre phobias (arachibutyrophobia, he says, is the fear of sticky peanut butter), lyrically named bird collectives (exaltations of larks, wisps of snipe and parliaments of owls), unsafe anagrams (rearrange mother-in-law and you get “woman Hitler”) and miscellaneous life lessons (“[n]ever use a poly-syllabic Latin word where a one-syllable Anglo-Saxon word will do”). Along the way, German defines over 1,500 big, troublesome words and reinforces reader retention with engaging exercises, including crossword puzzles and fill-in-the-blank quizzes that require one to insert the words aardvark, blasphemy, cremains, cyborg and eunuch into plausible sentences. It’s a fun read that sparkles with photographs, bright colors and crazy-quilt fonts. But this smorgasbord is still a serious textbook—readers will gain not just a store of factoids, but a sharpened ability to analyze new words and a deeper appreciation for the history and beauty of the language.       Lively, informative and thoroughly beguiling.   *End of Review*   This is NOT your parents’ vocabulary book. The Word on Words is a new kind of vocabulary book, combining learning and entertainment like no text you’ve ever read.   The Word on Words defines 1,500 words in the context of fascinating essays about art, history, literature, philosophy, pop culture, sports, mythology, and more. In addition to definitions, The Word on Words emphasizes the artistic and playful aspects of language—hence its subtitle, The Play of Language. As my wife says, “You learn better if you have a smile on your face.”    The book has five major focuses: vocabulary, etymology, mnemonic devices, usage, and the ludic or playful aspects of language. The Word on Words is ideal for those preparing for aptitude tests such as the SAT, ACT, and NTE. Great for GED study!   It’s perfect, too, as a supplemental text in ESL classes directed towards those acquiring English as a second language. It’s all in here: humorous explanations of palindromes, acronyms, anagrams, spoonerisms, malapropisms, portmanteau words and even false splitting—the way “a napple” transformed into “an apple”—in the context of revelatory essays about phobias, Mother’s Day, the birds and the bees, Father’s Day, the calendar, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the origins of first and last names, the days of the week, and the months of the year: all emphasized by entertaining end-of-chapter tests and crossword puzzles!

The Word on Words: Black-and-White Classroom Edition

Test Preparation

College & High School

Liberation of Bonner Child

Aegina Pr

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by German, Norman. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by German, Norman

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by German, Norman. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Anthony Hecht (American University Studies)

No Other World

A Savage Wisdom

The Word on Words: The Play of Language

No Other World

The Word on Words: Black-and-White Classroom Edition

Liberation of Bonner Child