Sibylla, a single mother from a long line of frustrated talents, has unusual ideas about child rearing. Yo Yo Ma started piano at the age of two; her son starts at three. J.S. Mill learned Greek at three; Ludo starts at four, reading Homer as they travel round and round the Circle Line. A fatherless boy needs male role models; so she plays the film of Seven Samurai as a running backdrop to his childhood. While Sibylla types out back copies of Carpworld to pay the rent, Ludo, aged five, moves on the Hebrew, Arabic and Japanese, aerodynamics and edible insects of the world - they might come in handy, if he can just persuade his mother he's mature enough to know his father's name. He is bound for knowledge of a less manageable sort, not least about his mother's past. And at the heart of the book is the boy's changing relationship with Sibylla - contradictory, touching and tender.

The Last Samurai

Literature & Fiction

Helen DeWitt

Genre Fiction

Vintage/Ebury (a Division of R

New Directions

Winner of the Utne Independent Press Award for 'Best Writing,' 2006.

n+1, Number Six: Mainstream

NIKIL SAVAL

Carla Blumenkranz

Wesley Yang

Kirill Medvedev

Ilya Gridneff

Caleb Crain

Alexandra Heifetz

Gloria Fisk

Alex Gourevitch

n+1 Research

The definitive history of Pitchfork, a report from the Gathering of the Juggalos, Kristin Dombek (author of "The Two Cultures of Life" from Issue 10) on the surprising sweetness of The Book of Mormon, and an excerpt from Helen DeWitt's new novel, Lightning Rods. Plus Mark Greif on Stanley Cavell and Carla Blumenkranz on Gordon Lish and new fiction, poetry, and reviews.

n+1 Issue 12: Conversion Experience

Marco Roth

Mark Greif

Benjamin Kunkel

Keith Gessen

Richard Beck

Elizabeth Gumport

Kristin Dombek

ChaD Harbach

Lawrence Jackson

Kent Russell

Siddhartha, Deb

Gideon Lewis-Kraus

Alexander Borinsky

Yitzhak Laor

n+1 Foundation

Last Samurai

Literary

VINTAGE ARROW - MASS MARKET

'All I want is to be a success. That's all I ask.' Failing salesman Joe has a dream  -  or rather an outrageous fantasy. Because holed up in his trailer Joe comes up with a jaw-dropping plan that will stamp out sexual harassment in the workplace and make his fortune. Win-win? As he turns his life around, Lightning Rods takes us to the very top of corporate America.

Lightning Rods

And Other Stories

'All I want is to be a success. That's all I ask.' Failing salesman Joe has a dream - or rather an outrageous fantasy. Because holed up in his trailer Joe comes up with a jaw-dropping plan that will stamp out sexual harassment in the workplace and make his fortune. Win-win? As he turns his life around, Lightning Rods takes us to the very top of corporate America.

United States

Das Leben mit dem hoch begabten Ludo stellt nicht nur an seine Mutter Sibylla allerhöchste Anforderungen, sondern auch an den Leser dieses Buches -- vorausgesetzt er lässt sich überhaupt auf die etwas eigenartige und recht verwirrende Verquickung verschiedener Handlungsstränge ein und kapituliert nicht schon nach den ersten 50 Seiten. Die zuweilen hoch geistige Lektüre erfordert ein erhebliches Maß an Konzentration, Geduld und ein zumindest rudimentäres Interesse an altgriechischer und japanischer Sprache sowie den Grundlagen der Algebra, allesamt Ludos Lerninhalte im Alter von vier Jahren.

Karl Blessing Verlag

De laatste samoerai

Prometheus

Viimeinen Samurai

Anna-Laura Talvio 'Elone

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Books by Helen DeWitt