Letters of H. L. Mencken

Literature & Fiction

H.L.Mencken

Essays & Correspondence

Northeastern

A powerful story of one woman's displacement between cultures and traditions—a landmark in Asian-American literature. When it was first published in America in 1968, Chuang Hua's evocative novel Crossings was completely unheralded and quickly went out of print. Years later it would be widely recognized as the first modernist novel to address the Asian-American experience, its deeply imagistic prose—marked by spatial and temporal leaps, an unconventional syntax, and unanticipated shifts in plot—as haunting as the writing of Jane Bowles. At the center of Crossings is Fourth Jane, the fourth of seven children whose recollections of an oppressive yet loving father, Dyadya, are collaged with her constant migrations between four continents. Suffering from a domestic torpor occasionally enlivened by ritualistic preparations of food for her foreign lover, Jane's displacement only heightens the remembrance of what she has fled: a breech of the familial code; a failed romance; and further in the past, the desolation of war as "bloated corpses flowed in the current of the yellow river." Spare, lyrical, Taoist in form and elusiveness, visually cinematic, tender and sensual, Chuang Hua's powerful narrative endures as one of the most moving and original works of literature in the history of American letters.

Crossings

Hua, Chuang

United States

Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History, 1638-1693

Witch-Hunting In Seventeenth-Century New England: A Documentary History, 1638-1693

History

David D. Hall

Americas

This collection of documents is the only one to reach beyond the famous Salem trials. Many of these records appear here in print for the first time, including court depositions, diary excerpts, and letters. David Hall's opening chapter introduces witch-hunting and places it in the social context of Puritan New England.

Hall, David D.

In this accessibly written, anecdotal memoir of the politics of music in the post-war Soviet Union, Rostislav Dubinsky, who was for more than twenty years first violinist and artistic director of the world-famous Borodin Quartet, recounts the telling details of life as a musician and a Jew within a totalitarian regime.

Stormy Applause: Making Music in a Worker's State

Biographies & Memoirs

Dubinsky, Rostislav

Arts & Literature

The past eight years have seen the renaissance of the Diva, with the rise to prominence of a number of female singers who are capable of drawing mass audiences as well as delivering performances to rival those of the stars of the past. The divas analyze their roles, both vocally and dramatically, discuss choices in repertoire and reflect on their lives and careers. Matheopoulos interweaves her narrative with insightful and critical commentary, and peppers her profiles with remarks from conductors, directors, voice teachers, coaches and, on occasion, famous colleagues from the past. She also highlights changes in the opera scene, including the appearance in recent years of many talented Russian singers and the prominence of American-born divas during the last decade. Interviews include 14 sopranos, including Barbara Bonney, Renee Fleming, Angela Gheorghiu, Galina Gorchakova, Catherine Malfitano and Carol Vaness, and seven mezzos, including Cecilia Bartoli, Olga Borodina and Jennifer Larmore.

Diva: Great Sopranos and Mezzos Discuss Their Art

Matheopoulos, Helena

Humor & Entertainment

The Story of the Blues

Featuring over 200 vintage photographs and a new introduction by the author, the engaging, informative volume brings to life the African American singers and players who created this rich genre of music as well as the settings and experiences that inspired them. The author deftly traces the evolution of the blues from the work songs of slaves, to acoustic country ballads, to urban sounds, to electric rhythm and blues bands. Oliver vividly re-creates the economic, social, and regional forces that shaped the unique blues tradition, and superbly details every facet of the music, including themes and subjects, techniques, and recording history.

The Story Of The Blues

Arts & Photography

OLIVER, Paul

Music

This poignant work collects correspondence written from 1913 to 1918 between Vera Brittain and four young men -- her fiance Roland Leighton, her younger brother Edward and their two close friends, Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow -- who were all killed in action during World War I. The correspondence presents a remarkable and profoundly moving portrait of five idealistic youths caught up in the cataclysm of war. Spanning the duration of the war, the letters vividly convey the uncertainty, confusion, and almost unbearable suspense of the tumultuous war years. They offer important historical insights by illuminating both male and female perspectives and allow the reader to witness and understand the Great War from a variety of viewpoints, including those of the soldier in the trenches, the volunteer nurse in military hospitals, and even the civilian population on the home front. As Brittain wrote to Roland Leighton in 1915, shortly after he arrived on the Western Front: "Nothing in the papers, not the most vivid and heartbreaking descriptions, have made me realize war like your letters." Yet this collection is, above all, a dramatic account of idealism, disillusionment, and personal tragedy as revealed by the voices of four talented schoolboys who went almost immediately from public school in Britain to the battlefields of France, Belgium, and Italy. Linking each of their compelling stories is the passionate and eloquent voice of Vera Brittain, who gave up her own studies to enlist in the armed services as a nurse. As World War I fades from living memory, these letters are a powerful and stirring testament to a generation forever shattered and haunted by grief, loss, and promise unfulfilled.

Letters From A Lost Generation: First World War Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends

Community & Culture

Focusing on instrumental works of high-art music, Von Glahn analyzes thoroughly the soundscapes of fourteen diverse composers who have commemorated American places. Organized chronologically, the volume looks at such distinctive American musical voices and works as Anthony Philip Heinrich, The War of the Elements and the Thundering of Niagara; Charles Ives, The Housatonic at Stockbridge and From Hanover Square North, at the End of a Tragic Day, the Voice of the People Again Arose; Aaron Copland, Quiet City and Music for a Great City; Duke Ellington, Harlem; Roy Harris, Cimarron; Ferde Grofe, Grand Canyon Suite; Robert Starer, Hudson Valley Suite; and Steve Reich, Vermont Counterpoint and New York Counterpoint.

The Sounds of Place: Music and the American Cultural Landscape

Von Glahn, Denise

In Search of Sacco and Vanzetti: Double Lives, Troubled Times, and the Massachusetts Murder Case That Shook the World

Tejada, Susan

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