N
Visual Arts (General)
LB1631
Writing through Visual Arts
N7433
Artists' Books
PL
Language & Literature
PS1-299
Essays, Books on Writing
PS300-6302
Poetry, Fiction (Literature)
PT
Plays, Translated Fiction, & Essays
PZ
Children's Books
| JOURNAL TITLE | FREQUENCY |
|---|---|
| ADBUSTERS | 6 PER YEAR |
| AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW | BIMONTHLY |
| DEAR DAVE | 3 PER YEAR |
| LAPHAM'S QUARTERLY | QUARTERLY |
| NEW LETTERS | QUARTERLY |
| MCSWEENEY'S | QUARTERLY |
| ORION | QUARTERLY |
Faux pas : selected writings and drawings of Amy Sillman by
Essays on art-making, abstraction, humor, not-knowing, awkwardness and more, from one of New York's most influential and popular painters and teachers
Since the 1970s, Amy Sillman--a beloved and key figure of the New York art scene--has developed a singular body of work that includes large-scale gestural paintings blending abstraction with representation, as well as zines and iPad animations.
Debi Cornwall: Necessary Fictions by
From the author of Welcome to Camp America, an eerie exploration of America's performance of power and identity in the post-9/11 era
What are the stories we tell ourselves, the games we play, to manage unsettling realities? Made on ten military bases across the United States since 2016, Necessary Fictions documents mock-village landscapes in the fictional country of "Atropia" and its denizens, roleplayers who enact versions of their past or future selves in realistic training scenarios.
Liberation Day by
"The 'best short story writer in English' (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose--wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned--Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality. 'Love Letter' is a tender missive from grandfather to grandson, in the midst of a dystopian political situation in the not-too-distant future, that reminds us of our obligations to our ideals, ourselves, and each other. 'Ghoul' is set in a Hell-themed section of an underground amusement park in Colorado, and follows the exploits of a lonely, morally complex character named Brian, who comes to question everything he takes for granted about his 'reality.' In 'Mother's Day,' two women who loved the same man come to an existential reckoning in the middle of a hailstorm. And in 'Elliott Spencer,' our eighty-nine-year-old protagonist finds himself brainwashed--his memory 'scraped'--a victim of a scheme in which poor, vulnerable people are reprogrammed and deployed as political protesters. Together, these nine subversive, profound, and essential stories coalesce into a case for viewing the world with the same generosity and clear-eyed attention as Saunders does, even in the most absurd of circumstances"-- Provided by publisher.
Punks by
"A landmark collection of poetry by acclaimed fiction writer, translator, and MacArthur Fellow John Keene, Punks: New & Selected Poems is a generous treasury in seven sections that spans decades and includes previously unpublished and brand new work. With depth and breadth, Punks weaves together historic narratives of loss, lust, and love. The many voices that emerge in these poems--from historic Black personalities, both familial and famous, to the poet's friends and lovers in gay bars and bedrooms--form a cast of characters capable of addressing desire, oppression, AIDS, and grief through sorrowful songs that "we sing as hard as we live." At home in countless poetic forms, Punks reconfirms John Keene as one of the most important voices in contemporary poetry."--Publisher's webpage.
Klara and the Sun by
"From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara--an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities--watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara she is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous tale, Klara and the Sun, Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?"-- Provided by publisher.
Gentlewomen by
The work of care falls disproportionately on women and often renders them lacking and unacknowledged in their labor. This volume explores personal and historical trauma, bonds between mothers and sisters, and our estrangement from the natural world and from ourselves due to an exploitative and extractive relationship to land and peoples (human and otherwise). Through an allegorical envisioning of a world that is like our own but heightened through the individual lives and responsibilities of three sisters, Natura, Providentia, and Fortuna, the poems sound out in mourning and frustration-and try to imagine the world otherwise. A transformative journey through the shadows towards reconciliation both between sisters and with oneself.
Rebecca Norris Webb: Night Calls by
Rebecca Norris Webb (born 1956) first came across W. Eugene Smith's "Country Doctor," his famous Life magazine photo essay, while studying at the International Center of Photography in New York. She was immediately drawn to the subject of Smith's essay, Dr Ernest Ceriani, a Colorado country doctor who was just a few years older than her father. She wondered: How would a woman tell this story, especially if she happened to be the doctor's daughter? In light of this, for the past six years Norris Webb has retraced the route of her 99-year-old father's house calls through Rush County, Indiana, the rural county where they both were born. Following his work rhythms, she photographed often at night and in the early morning, when many people arrive into the world--her father delivered some one thousand babies--and when many people leave it. Accompanying the photographs, lyrical text pieces addressed to her father create a series of handwritten letters told at a slant.--Publisher's website.
Orwell's Roses by
"A fresh take on George Orwell as a far more nature-loving figure than is often portrayed, and a dazzlingly rich meditation on roses, gardens, and the value and use of beauty and pleasure in the face of brutality and horror. "In the spring of 1936 a man planted roses." That man was George Orwell, shortly before he went off to fight against fascism in Spain. Today, those rosebushes are still thriving. This is the starting point for Rebecca Solnit's new book, which presents another side of Orwell, a neglected arcadian Orwell who took enormous pleasure in the natural world and found great meaning and value in it. Orwell's planting of the roses is an axle from which Solnit's chapters radiate out like spokes as she brilliantly explores its various contexts, perspectives, and meanings, following the contours of Orwell's life and tracking how deeply enmeshed the love of nature is in all his writing. Journeying to the cottage in Wallingford where Orwell lived in 1936, she examines his desire to be agrarian and settled, how gardening restored him, and how planting something can be an act of fidelity and faith. Probing at the beauty and meaning of roses, she draws in the revolutionary photography and politics of Tina Modotti and makes a clandestine visit to a Columbian rose factory, where 80% of America's roses for sale are grown. She tracks the history of gardening, showing how the desire to garden is culturally determined and often rooted in class, recounts the immense battles over breeding and genetics in Russia during Stalin's time, and probes into the colonialist roots of Orwell's forebears, who worked in opium production in India and profiteered from sugar and slavery in Jamaica. Solnit shows how these points of intersection illuminate Orwell's work, and how that illumination shines forth on larger questions about beauty, pleasure, meaning, relationship, and hope. Her book establishes that "Orwellian" could stand for something more than ominous, corrupt, and sinister"--Provided by publisher.
Today in the Taxi by
Sean Singer's radiant and challenging body of work involves, much like Whitman's, nothing less than the ongoing interrogation of what a poem is. In this way his books are startlingly alive... I love in this work the sense that I am the grateful recipient of Singer's jazzy curation as I move from page to page. Today in the Taxi is threaded through with quotes from Kafka, facts about jazz musicians, musings from various thinkers, from a Cathar fragment to Martin Buber to Arthur Eddington to an anonymous comedian. The taxi is at once a real taxi and the microcosm of a world-at times the speaker seems almost like Charon ferrying his passengers, as the nameless from all walks and stages of life step in and out his taxi. I am reminded of Calvino's Invisible Cities, of Sebald's The Rings of Saturn... Today in the Taxi is intricate, plain, suggestive, deeply respectful of the reader, and utterly absorbing. Like Honey and Smoke before it, which was one of the best poetry books of the last decade, this is work of the highest order." -Laurie Sheck.
Good Actors by
At birth we are given a role--it is our name. GOOD ACTORS is a side-eyed illumination of the artist as self-help guru, oracle, and sage, but more importantly as mother, lover, and friend. Part psychological experiment, part conceptual art piece, part screenplay, GOOD ACTORS is 100% a joyful celebration of language and life. And because it is Sommer, the book is hilarious, melancholy, and existential.
Of Mineral by
A collection of lyric meditations cultivated from a deeply personal experience of the natural world, synthesizing the poet's experiences of the elemental and ephemeral; presence and place.
In Of Mineral, Tiff Dressen initiates a chemical reaction, taking place on the page so meaning is continually created and destroyed. The forces at play create a beautiful and unpredictable stability. With intentionality and deep attention, the poet undergoes an elemental education, learning through articulation how to experience the natural world as an active participant rather than as an observer. As the poet attempts to synchronize their left and right brain, boundaries between the urban and the "wild" dissolve to form a more unified experience of presence.
Obit by
"After her mother died, poet Victoria Chang refused to write elegies. Rather, she distilled her grief during a feverish two weeks by writing scores of poetic obituaries for all she lost in the world. In Obit, Chang writes of "the way memory gets up after someone has died and starts walking." These poems reinvent the form of newspaper obituary to both name what has died ("civility," "language," "the future," "Mother's blue dress") and the cultural impact of death on the living. Whereas elegy attempts to immortalize the dead, an obituary expresses loss, and the love for the dead becomes a conduit for self-expression. In this unflinching and lyrical book, Chang meets her grief and creates a powerful testament for the living"-- Provided by publisher.
Undrowned by
Undrowned is a book-length meditation for social movements and our whole species based on the subversive and transformative guidance of marine mammals. Our aquatic cousins are queer, fierce, protective of each other, complex, shaped by conflict, and struggling to survive the extractive and militarized conditions our species has imposed on the ocean. Gumbs employs a brilliant mix of poetic sensibility and naturalist observation to show what they might teach us, producing not a specific agenda but an unfolding space for wondering and questioning. From the relationship between the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale and Gumbs s Shinnecock and enslaved ancestors to the ways echolocation changes our understandings of 'vision' and visionary action, this is a masterful use of metaphor and natural models in the service of social justice.
Everything Is Relevant by
"Everything is Relevant: Writings on Art and Life, 1991-2018 brings together texts by Canadian artist Ken Lum. They include a letter to an editor, diary entries, articles, catalogue essays, curatorial statements, and more. Along the way, the reader learns about late modern, postmodern, and contemporary art practices, as well as debates around issues like race, class, and monumentality. Penetrating, insightful, and often moving, Lum's writings are essential for understanding his practice, which has been prescient of developments within contemporary art, as well as the international art world over the last three decades."-- Provided by publisher.
Meander, Spiral, Explode by
As Jane Alison writes in the introduction to her insightful and appealing book about the craft of writing: "For centuries there's been one path through fiction we're most likely to travel-- one we're actually told to follow--and that's the dramatic arc: a situation arises, grows tense, reaches a peak, subsides . . . But something that swells and tautens until climax, then collapses? Bit masculosexual, no? So many other patterns run through nature, tracing other deep motions in life. Why not draw on them, too?" W. G. Sebald's Emigrants was the first novel to show Alison how forward momentum can be created by way of pattern, rather than the traditional arc-- or, in nature, wave. Other writers of nonlinear prose considered in her "museum of specimens" include Nicholson Baker, Anne Carson, Marguerite Duras, Gabriel García Márquez, Jamaica Kincaid, Clarice Lispector, Susan Minot, David Mitchell, Caryl Phillips, and Mary Robison. Meander, Spiral, Explode is a singular and brilliant elucidation of literary strategies that also brings high spirits and wit to its original conclusions. It is a liberating manifesto that says, Let's leave the outdated modes behind and, in thinking of new modes, bring feeling back to experimentation. It will appeal to serious readers and writers alike. -- Provided by publisher.
Antigonick by
Anne Carson has published translations of the ancient Greek poets Sappho, Simonides, Aiskhylos, Sophokles and Euripides. Antigonick is her seminal work. Sophokles luminous and disturbing tragedy is here given an entirely fresh language and presentation. This paperback edition includes a new preface by the author, zDear Antigone.y.
A Terrible, Horrible, No Good Year by
The tenth book in the Six-Word Memoir series tells the story of a world we never expected to be in and can't stop talking about. Told through the lens of students, teachers, and parents around the world, A Terrible, Horrible, No Good Year offers hundreds of inspirational, playful, and profound takes on life during the pandemic. For some, this book will be a window. For others, a mirror of their own experience. For all of us, A Terrible, Horrible, No Good Year is a time capsule to be read, shared, and discussed and is certain to prompt friends, family, and neighbors to ask each other: "What's your six-word pandemic story?"
Sister Outsider by
Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature.
The Black Unicorn by
Rich continues: "Refusing to be circumscribed by any simple identity, Audre Lorde writes as a Black woman, a mother, a daughter, a Lesbian, a feminist, a visionary; poems of elemental wildness and healing, nightmare and lucidity. Her rhythms and accents have the timelessness of a poetry which extends beyond white Western politics, beyond the anger and wisdom of Black America, beyond the North American earth, to Abomey and the Dahomeyan Amazons. These are poems nourished in an oral tradition, which also blaze and pulse on the page, beneath the reader's eye."
A Complex Sentence by
"In her sixth collection with Coffee House, Welish continues to explore rhetorical practices, such as diagramming, inscription, and quotation, to call our attention to literary acts-from finding the right desk to getting lost at logic gates-yet all the while following the mental circuitry of dismantling and re-assembling a poetic language. Expertly manipulating the space of the page, her poems dissolve the boundaries between visual art and the written word. With her signature precision, musicality, and structural rigor, Welish turns the lyric poem into a critical instrument with which to think about the writer's calling, through the specifics of language and literature"-- Provided by publisher.
Calling a Wolf a Wolf by
""The struggle from late youth on, with and without God, agony, narcotics and love is a torment rarely recorded with such sustained eloquence and passion as you will find in this collection." -Fanny Howe. This highly-anticipated debut boldly confronts addiction and courses the strenuous path of recovery, beginning in the wilds of the mind. Poems confront craving, control, the constant battle of alcoholism and sobriety, and the questioning of the self and its instincts within the context of this never-ending fight. From "Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before": Sometimes you just have to leave whatever's real to you, you have to clomp through fields and kick the caps off all the toadstools. Sometimes you have to march all the way to Galilee or the literal foot of God himself before you realize you've already passed the place where you were supposed to die. I can no longer remember the being afraid, only that it came to an end. Kaveh Akbar is the founding editor of Divedapper. His poems appear recently or soon in The New Yorker, Poetry, APR, Tin House, PBS NewsHour, and elsewhere. He is the author of the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic (Sibling Rivalry). The recipient of a 2016 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, Akbar was born in Tehran, Iran, and currently lives and teaches in Florida"-- Provided by publisher.
Ugly Music by
Poetry. African & African American Studies. Latinx Studies. Women's Studies. Diannely Antigua's debut collection, UGLY MUSIC, is a cacophonous symphony of reality, dream, trauma, and obsession. It reaches into the corners of love and loss where survival and surrender are blurred. The poems span a traumatic early childhood, a religious adolescence, and, later, a womanhood that grapples with learning how to create an identity informed by, yet in spite of, those challenges. What follows is an exquisitely vulgar voice, unafraid to draw attention to the distasteful, to speak a truth created by a collage of song and confession, diary and praise. It is an account of observation and dissociation, the danger of simultaneously being inside and outside the experiences that mold a life. UGLY MUSIC emerges as a story of witness, a realization that even the strangest things exist on earth and deserve to live.
M Archive by
Following the innovative collection Spill, Alexis Pauline Gumbs's M Archive--the second book in a planned experimental triptych--is a series of poetic artifacts that speculatively documents the persistence of Black life following a worldwide cataclysm. Engaging with the work of the foundational Black feminist theorist M. Jacqui Alexander, and following the trajectory of Gumbs's acclaimed visionary fiction short story "Evidence," M Archive is told from the perspective of a future researcher who uncovers evidence of the conditions of late capitalism, antiblackness, and environmental crisis while examining possibilities of being that exceed the human. By exploring how Black feminist theory is already after the end of the world, Gumbs reinscribes the possibilities and potentials of scholarship while demonstrating the impossibility of demarcating the lines between art, science, spirit, scholarship, and politics.
Wow, No Thank You by
"Irby is forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what Inspirational Instagram Infographics have promised her. She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and has been friendzoned by Hollywood, left Chicago, and moved into a house with a garden that requires repairs and know-how with her wife in a Blue town in the middle of a Red state where she now hosts book clubs and makes mason jar salads. This is the bourgeois life of a Hallmark Channel dream. She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with "tv executives slash amateur astrologers" while being a "cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person," "with neck pain and no cartilage in [her] knees," who still hides past due bills under her pillow. The essays in this collection draw on the raw, hilarious particulars of Irby's new life. Wow, No Thank You is Irby at her most unflinching, riotous, and relatable"--Amazon.com.
High Ground Coward by
Alicia Mountain's urgent and astonishing debut collection maps a new queer landscape through terrain alive and sensual, defiant and inviting. With a voice that beckons while it howls, Mountain nimbly traverses lyric, confessional, and narrative modes, leaving groundbreaking tracks for us to follow. High Ground Coward offers fists full of soil, leftovers for breakfast, road trip as ritual, twins of lovers and twins of ourselves. This world blooms with hunger-inducing detail, its speakers asking us to consider what it will take to satisfy our own appetites while simultaneously trying to nourish one another. "Ferocious, even the softest part," Mountain shows us "a way to fall in love with wanting," leaving us "ravenous, but gradually."
Ghost Of by
Ghost Of is a mourning song, not an exorcism or un-haunting of that which haunts, but attuned attention, unidirectional reaching across time, space, and distance to reach loved ones, ancestors, and strangers. By working with, in, and around the photographs that her brother left behind (from which he cut himself out before his death), Nguyen wrestles with what remains: memory, physical voids, and her family captured around an empty space.
Out of Nowhere into Nothing by
Essays on the apparitional, the incomprehensible, and the paranormal in conversation with art, travel, and storytelling.
Curating Home by
Curating Home is a collection of poems by Kansas City-metro area poets from both sides of the state line, fully representing poetry throughout Kansas City. This anthology was published by Woodneath Press in conjunction with the Missouri Bicentennial "State of Stories" programming offered by Mid-Continent Public Library's Story Center and the University of Missouri's Extension Community Arts Program. The anthology consists of 44 previously unpublished poems by 34 regional poets and was co-edited by Kansas City-based poets José Faus, Marianne Kunkel, and Glenn North. Local graphic designer, Amber Noll, created the book cover based on the identified theme of the submitted poems: Curating Home. The end product is an anthology of Kansas City poetry with cover art created by a Kansas City artist.
Persepolis by
In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family. Their long dream is realized when the hated Shah is defeated in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, Marji grows up to witness first hand how the new Iran has become a repressive tyranny on its own. With Marji dangerously refusing to remain silent at this injustice, her parents send her abroad to Vienna to study. This change proves an equally difficult trial for Marji. She finds herself in a different culture loaded with abrasive characters and profound disappointments that deeply trouble her. Even when she returns home, Marji finds that both she and her homeland have changed too much and the young woman and her loving family must decide where she truly belongs.
The color of pomegranates (blu-ray) by
A breathtaking fusion of poetry, ethnography, and cinema, Sergei Parajanov's masterwork overflows with images and sounds that burn into the memory.
The adventures of Prince Achmed by
Premiered in Germany in 1926 and is based on the stories from "The Arabian nights", this movie has been hailed as the first full-length animated film. This is the story of a wicked sorcerer who tricks Prince Achmed into mounting a magical flying horse that sends the rider off on a flight to his death.
Milch by
Comprised of stunning visuals and stylistic poetry, the short animated film Milch is a story about a family's secret and a young boy's desire. An eight year old boy discovers love and suffering as he faces his family's mortality.
The Hubley collection v.1 by
Short, animated films produced by the Hubley Studios. Enter life: Evolution is symbolically traced as four billion years fly by in 6 minutes. Upside down: Projects a world of harmony and balance in the Earth's ecosystem. Who am I? A child's discovery of his five senses. Blake ball: William Blake's poetry comes to life through the world of baseball! Time of the Angels: Poetry, music and visuals are used to present a new vision of Central and South America. W.W.W.: Presents a historical view of the changing relationships between the sexes. People, people, people: A recap of North America's population explosion from 17,760 BC to 1976 AD. Amazonia: A plea to save the tropical rain forest. Yes we can: Earth is being plundered and earth mother is dying. Moonbird: Two brothers hunt an imaginary bird. Tall time tales: A blend of ethereal images and surrealist landscapes turn the sense of time, rhythm and reality upside down. Windy day: Conveys two sister's view of love, death and marriage. Cloudland: Draws upon imagery from Australian aboriginal art to create a magical film journey.
The complete works of Yuri Norstein by
Features animated shorts by Russian animator Yuri Norstein, including his first film, 25th : the first day, about the first day of the October Revolution, which combines poetry by Mayakovsky and music by Shostakovich with images and motifs inspired by the art of a number of Russia's leading avant-garde and post-revolutionary artists. Includes Battle of Kerjenets, which is based on a legendary Russian battle and features frescoes, icons, and Rimsky-Korsakov music, and several animated shorts based on Russian folk tales. Also presents Tale of tales, which weaves threads of realism and nostalgia around a popular Russian lullaby, Pablo Picasso's minotaur, and images of the lost glories of Alexander Pushkin and the golden age of Russian literature.
The real Scorpion King by
Modern archaeologists, who explore the desolate deserts of Egypt, believe they have uncovered evidence about the first ruling dynasty in Egyptian history, a dynasty that existed some five thousand years ago. The first pharoah, the so-called "Scorpion King," may have introduced the first Egyptian writing system, promoted the use of ritual warfare, initiated the establishment of organized religion and sponsored monumental building projects.
Between the folds : a film about finding inspiration in unexpected places by
Origami may seem an unlikely medium for understanding and explaining the world. But around the globe, several fine artists and theoretical scientists are abandoning more conventional career paths to forge lives as modern-day paper folders. Through origami, these offbeat and provocative minds are reshaping ideas of creativity and revealing the relationship between art and science. This film chronicles 10 of their stories: three of the world's foremost origami artists, less conventional artists, abstract artists, advanced mathematicians and a remarkable scientist who received a MacArthur Genius Award for his computational origami research. While debates ebb and flow on issues of folding technique, symbolism and purpose, this film shows how closely art and science are intertwined. The medium of paper folding--a simple blank, uncut square--emerges as a metaphor for the creative potential of transformation in all of us.
Are We There Yet? by
Recorded live at Peter Norton Symphony Space in New York City and at venues across the United States, these audio anthologies feature short stories from the Selected Shorts program that airs nationwide. More than 300,000 listeners tune in to this offering weekly to hear spellbinding tales read aloud by an assortment of terrific actors. A lot can happen on the way from one place to another, especially when an overnight flight makes for an unexpected romantic encounter between strangers seated together; South-of-France shenanigans ensue in an out-of-control automobile; and a bored, Midwestern housewife tries to escape to Kansas City.
Falling in Love by
Fans of the extremely popular Selected Shorts NPR radio program will fall in love with this three-CD compilation featuring six love stories written by authors such as Rick Bass, Laurie Colwin, and Edna O'Brien and read by acclaimed actors including William Hurt and Hope Davis. Great literature is regularly brought to life in this hour-long radio program of classic and new stories recorded live at New York's Symphony Space.
Food Fictions by
Offering a mix of classic and contemporary fiction, this funny, sensual, delectable collection serves up literary morsels to please every food lover. Delicious tales about food and eating by authors such as M. F. K. Fisher, Anton Chekhov, and Damon Runyon, are read by distinguished actors such as Tony Roberts.
Pets! by
The cast of characters in this compilation is a menagerie of animalscats, dogs, birds, even a dragonand their owners. Included in the funny and unexpected stories about people, pets, and their problems are T. C. Boyle’s "Heart of a Champion" read by Isaiah Sheffer; Robertson Davies’ "The Cat That Went to Trinity" read by Charles Keating; Molly Giles’ "Pie Dance" read by Kate Burton; Gail Godwin’s "St. George" read by Jane Curtin; and Max Steele’s "The Cat and the Coffee Drinkers" read by Paul Hecht.
Readers and Writers by
Full of funny, fantastical, and poignant stories about people with unique and passionate connections to the written word, this set will have a particular resonance with those who favor books.
Family Matters by
Hilarious and colorful episodes in the lives of families--many depicted from a kid's-eye-view--are the theme for this compilation. They include, Shirley Jackson's "Charles" read by Lois Smith, Etgar Keret's "Pride and Joy" read by Robert Sean Leonard, Diane Leslie's "A Life of Crime" read by Jill Eikenberry, Rick Moody's "Boys" read by B. D. Wong, Frank O'Connor's "First Confession" read by Malachy McCourt, Grace Paley's "The Loudest Voice" read by Linda Lavin, and Toure's "Solomon's Big Day: A Children's Story" read by Daniel Alexander Jones.
Selected Shorts by
From a couple's rocky, college love affair that lasts a lifetime and a mother who nervously chaperones her retarded daughter's honeymoon to a supernatural tale of marriage and transformation and a grieving man who buries his young wife and makes amends with her family, this anthology captures the powerful and complicated lives of married couples.
Tales of Betrayal by
Abraham prepares to slay Isaac; siblings fall in love with the same man; a Thai man hides his secret guilt from his best friend on draft selection dayin each betrayal, characters make choices that define their lives and suffer consequences often dire or disquieting. Among this anthology’s features are Tessa Hadley’s "Mother’s Son" read by Shohreh Aghdashloo, Adam Haslett’s "Devotion" read by John Shea, Rattawut Lapcharoensap’s "Draft Day" read by B. D. Wong, and Galina Vromen’s "Sarah’s Story" read by Jane Curtin.
Timeless Classics by
Recorded live at Peter Norton Symphony Space in New York City and at venues across the United States, these audio anthologies feature short stories from the Selected Shorts radio program aired nationwide. More than 300,000 listeners have tuned in to these spellbinding tales read aloud by an assortment of terrific actors; here is collection of seven classic stories.
A Touch of Magic by
By turns funny, moving, romantic, and surreal, each of the tales on this magical lineup is filled with unexpected twists and turns. Stephen Colbert performs Ray Bradbury’s tale about a room that can take one anywhere in the worldsometimes with dangerous consequences. From a romance between a mermaid and an imp to a wonderful ghost story about a trinket with terrible powers, this eclectic collection also features narratives by W. W. Jacobs, Andrew Lam, Saki, and T. C. Boyle as well as performances by John Lithgow, James Naughton, Daniel Gerroll, and René Auberjonois.
Wartime Lives by
What happens to people's lives during times of battle and strife from the American Revolution to the ongoing war in Iraq is the subject of this collection. Before Independence, a slave fights for freedom by taking up arms for the British; in WW I, a mother goes to the front lines to see her son; and in our time, a teenager in Oregon waits for e-mail from his father in the Middle East. Featured stories include Tom Bissell's "War Wounds" read by Oskar Eustis, Robert Olen Butler's "Mother in the Trenches" read by Kathleen Chalfant, Charles Johnson's "A Soldier for the Crown" read by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" read by Dylan Baker, and Benjamin Percy's "Refresh, Refresh" read by Ted Marcoux.
Whodunit? by
Here, Symphony Space presents a collection of eleven mind-boggling, detective mysteries.
The William Hurt Collection by
From a Bosnian man's struggle to make a new life in America to a teenage boy's relationship with his single mother and her new boyfriend against the background of the stark Montana landscape -- this collection of poignant, romantic, and funny tales is performed entirely by the Academy Award-winning actor William Hurt. Featured stories include Ron Carlson's "Towel Season", Richard Ford's "Communist", Aleksandar Hemon's "Blind Josef Pronek", and Tobias Wolff's "Nightingale". The CD also includes an interview with William Hurt.
Wondrous Women by
Strong female protagonists grace this collection of passionate stories dedicated to mothers, daughters, wives, and lovers. A woman splurges on an irresistible coat that becomes her and transforms her; a feisty teenager who has grown up as her activist mother's poster-child realizes the strength of her own convictions; and a young peasant woman saved from drowning is suddenly drawn to her rescuer and hopeful about her life.
