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Nothing Remains the Same
From the esteemed cultural critic and journalist Wendy Lesser, Nothing Remains the Same is a bibliophile's dream: a book about the pleasures and surprises of rereading, a witty, intelligent exploration of what books can mean to our lives. Compared with reading, the act of rereading is far more personal -- it involves the interaction of our past selves, our present selves, and literature. With candor, humor, and grace, Lesser takes us on a guided tour of her own return to books she once knew, from the plays of Shakespeare to twentieth-century novels by Kingsley Amis and Ian McEwan, from the childhood favorite I Capture the Castle to classic novels such as Anna Karenina and Huckleberry Finn, from nonfiction by Henry Adams to poetry by Wordsworth. Lesser conveys an infectious love of reading and inspires us all to take another look at the books we've read to find the unexpected treasures they might offer.
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Why I Read
Wendy Lesser's extraordinary alertness, intelligence, and curiosity have made her one of America's most significant cultural critics, writes Stephen Greenblatt. In Whyl Read, Lesser draws on a lifetime of pleasure reading and decades of editing to describe a life lived in and through literature. As Lesser examines work from such perspectives as Character and Plot, Novelty, Grandeur and Intimacy, and Authority, the reader will discover a definition of literature that is as broad as it is broad-minded. In addition to novels and stories, Lesser explores plays, poems, and essays, along with mysteries, science fiction, and memoirs. Her passion for reading is infectious - and it resonates on every page.
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Pictures at an Execution
This book is about murder—in life and in art—and about how we look at it and feel about it. At the center of Wendy Lesser’s investigation is a groundbreaking legal case in which a federal court judge was asked to decide whether a gas chamber execution would be broadcast on public television. Our grim and seemingly endless fascination with murder gets its day in court as Lesser conducts us through the proceedings, pausing along the way to reflect on the circumstances of violent death in our culture. Her book, itself a murder mystery of sorts, circling suspensefully around a central point, is also a meditation on murder in a civilized society—what we make of it in law, morality, and art.Lesser narrates the trial with a sharp eye for detail and an absorbing sense of character. Questions that arise in the courtroom conjure other, broader ones: why are we drawn to murder, as an act and as a spectacle? Who in a murder story are we drawn to—victim, murderer, detective? Is such interest, even pleasure, morally suspect? Lesser’s reflections on these questions follow the culture in its danse macabre, from Norman Mailer’s Executioner’s Song to the Jacobean play The Changeling, from Errol Morris’s documentary The Thin Blue Line to Crime and Punishment, from Janet Malcolm’s The Journalist and the Murderer to Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me, from Weegee’s photographs to television’s movie of the week. Always anchored in the courtroom, where the question of murder as theater is being settled in immediate, human terms, this circle of thought widens outward to the increasingly blurred borderline between real and fictional murder, between event and story, between murder as news and as art. As gripping as its subject, Pictures at an Execution ultimately brings us face to face with our own most disturbing cultural impulses.
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Berlin Before and After
"Delightfully original, brilliantly conceived, witty, and poignant." --Brenda WineappleBerlin is more than a city; it's a survivor, an enigma, and a mirror to the world, a unique place whose recent past holds essential lessons for us today.IIn 1929, Berlin stood at a precipice--alive with art, literature, and radical politics, yet trembling under the weight of economic instability and the shadows of extremism. A century later, the city bears the scars and triumphs of everything that followed: dictatorship, devastation, division, and ultimately reunification. Today's Berlin is both haunted by and distinct from its past, a metropolis where every street corner and memorial carries the echoes of history, acknowledging and thus atoning for what took place there.A seasoned chronicler of cities and culture, Wendy Lesser reveals Berlin as a place that refuses to forget, a living reminder of both catastrophe and resilience. In its transformations lie urgent lessons for the rest of the world, and particularly for America today.A history, travelogue, cultural study, and personal reflection, Berlin Before and After captures the essence of a city that has lived through extremes and offers hope and proof that the past need not dictate the future.
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Lesser Good
Western civilization is founded upon the assumption that there exists a "natural order" to the world, an embedded principle of justice with which human reason is aligned. The imagery is seductive. However, Emil Fackenheim raises a troubling fact in his To Mend the World when he names the Holocaust the "rupture that ruptures philosophy." The Holocaust and countless other horrors over thousands of years of eager philosophical pursuit could not order the troublesome human soul to that state of justice that the Plato claims to be the most natural and happy state of human beings, if they can simply know their best interests. The philosopher, physician to the human soul, has proven impotent in healing the open ethical wound of human inhumanity; worse, the grand ontological and epistemological structures that philosophers have constructed may be linked to the ethical failures of the planet, to colonial and imperial worldviews. The work of post-Holocaust phenomenologist, Emmanuel Levinas, is written under the somber backdrop of the Holocaust. Levinas, by his own admission, stages a return to Plato. He shares Plato's sense of ethical urgency in the philosophical task, but he sets course for a new Platonism that thinks the difference separating (rather than the unity gathering) being. Levinas, more than Plato, appreciates that the exigencies and labor of everyday life can eclipse the needs of others and waylay the ethical life. Levinas too holds out more hope than Plato that the worst human beings can simply forget themselves and their self-interested projects, and become their brothers' keepers. Levinas quests for the good beyond being as he challenges the tradition of Western thought and the post-Holocaust world to a new ethos: we must decide between the starry skies above (the ordered ontologies of the Western tradition) and the moral law within. The Lesser Good represents a timely consideration of the ethical exigencies of human life, politics, and justice, demonstrating that philosophy's fa
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Wendy
Dave Daze, as I would christen years later entries in Diary, mentioned for that night of 1 December 1978 only 'a nice looking Wendy'. Cookface was struck by my exact, bolder words in the car: 'I'm going to marry that girl.'The author's attempts to make good on his pledge take us through the next four years from that first meeting at two companies' Christmas parties. Wendy is a separated single mum committed to raising her son and a full-time job in Rugby. David is a single man, committed more to drinking than developing a career in insurance. This compelling memoir picks up eight years on from The Sunny Side of the House ('a whirlwind of humour, heartache, and childhood revelations'), which covered David's East Anglian boyhood to age fifteen. You can take the boy out of the country... Was the meeting in 1978 pure chance or secret harmony? Degrees of separation occur as David's job takes him from Northampton to London. Career horizons broaden as far as Africa and South America, but will he pursue them within or without his developing small family unit? Follow this grown-up and growing-up story to see who will be boarding an intercontinental flight in February 1983.
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Chanel Bonfire
In her stunning memoir, Wendy Lawless tells the often heartbreaking tale of her unconventional upbringing with an unstable alcoholic and suicidal mother--a real-life Holly Golightly turned Mommie Dearest--and the uncommon sense of resilience that allowed her to rise above it all. Don't forget to look out for Wendy's follow-up memoir, Heart of Glass, coming March 2016 from Gallery Books. Georgann Rea didn't bake cookies or go to PTA meetings; she wore a mink coat and always had a lit Dunhill plugged into her cigarette holder. She'd slept with too many men and a few women, and she didn't like dogs or chil-dren. Georgann possessed the icy beauty of a Hitchcock heroine with the cold heart to match. From living at the Dakota in 1960s Manhattan to London's swinging town houses and beyond, Wendy Lawless and her younger sister navigated day-to-day life as their unstable and fabulously neglectful mother, Georgann, chased her delusions, suffered dramatic breakdowns, and survived suicide attempts. With clear-eyed grace and flashing wit, Lawless portrays the highs and lows of her unhinged upbringing--and how she survived her mother's endlessly destructive search for glamour and fulfillment--in "a searing memoir that reads like a novel" (Anne Korkeakivi, An Unexpected Guest).
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Wedding as Text
A wedding serves as the beginning marker of a marriage; if a couple is to manage cultural differences throughout their relationship, they must first pass the hurdle of designing a wedding ceremony that accommodates those differences. In this volume, author Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz documents the weddings of 112 couples from across the United States, studied over a 10-year period. She focuses on intercultural weddings--interracial, interethnic, interfaith, international, and interclass--looking at how real people are coping with cultural differences in their lives. Through detailed case studies, the book explores how couples display different identities simultaneously. The concepts of community, ritual, identity, and meaning are given extensive consideration. Because material culture plays a particularly important role in weddings as in other examples of ritual, food, clothing, and objects are given special attention here. Focusing on how couples design a wedding ritual to simultaneously meet multiple--and different--requirements, this book provides: *extensive details of actual behavior by couples; *an innovative format: six traditional theoretical chapters, with examples integrated into the discussion, are matched to six "interludes" providing detailed descriptions of the most successful examples of resolving intercultural differences; *a methodological appendix detailing what was done and why these decisions were made; and *a theoretical appendix outlining the study's assumptions in detail. Wedding as Text: Communicating Cultural Identities Through Ritual is a distinctive study of those who have accepted cultural difference into their daily lives and how they have managed to do so successfully. As such, it is suitable for students and scholars in semiotics, intercultural communication, ritual, material culture, family communication, and family studies, and will be valuable reading for anyone facing the issue of cultural difference.
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Patrick Chamoiseau
Patrick Chamoiseau: A Critical Introduction examines the career, oeuvre, and literary theories of one of the most important Caribbean writers living today. Chamoiseau's work sheds light on the dynamic processes of creolization that have shaped Caribbean history and culture. He is the recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the prestigious Prix Goncourt for the epic novel Texaco. The author's diverse body of work, which includes plays, novels, fictionalized memoirs, treatises, and other genres of writing, offers a compelling vision of the postcolonial world from a francophone Caribbean perspective.An important addition to Caribbean literary studies, Patrick Chamoiseau is an indispensable work for scholars interested in francophone, Caribbean, and world literatures as well as cultural studies. Scholars and students with interests in creolization, neocolonialism, and globalization will find this work particularly valuable.Patrick Chamoiseau brings the writer's major works of fiction into dialogue with lesser-known texts, including unpublished theatrical works, screenplays, visual texts, and treatises. This holistic, comprehensive, and largely chronological study of Chamoiseau's oeuvre includes analyses of various authorial strategies, especially the use of narrative masques, cross-cultural storytelling techniques, and creolizing poetics.
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Heart of Glass
Author of the New York Times bestseller Chanel Bonfire, Wendy Lawless chronicles her twenties: the darkly funny story of a girl without a roadmap for life who leaves her disastrous past to find herself in the gritty heart of 1980s New York City. Before downtown Manhattan was scrubbed clean, gentrified, and overrun with designer boutiques and trendy eateries and bars, it was the center of a burgeoning art scene--both exciting and dangerous. Running from the shipwreck of her glamorous and unstable childhood with a volatile mother, Wendy Lawless landed in the center of it all. With an open heart and a thrift store wardrobe, Wendy navigated this demi-monde of jaded punk rockers, desperate actors, pulsing parties, and unexpected run-ins with her own past as she made every mistake of youth, looked for love in all the wrong places, and eventually learned how to grow up on her own. With the same "biting humor" (People) that made her "powerful" (USA TODAY) and "illuminating and inspiring" (Reader's Digest) New York Times bestseller Chanel Bonfire so captivating, Wendy turns her brutally honest and often hilarious spotlight on herself, recounting her tumultuous and giddy twenties trying to make it in the creative underbelly of New York City, all the while searching for love, a paying job, and occasionally, a free meal.
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Art of Lent
Join Sister Wendy on a journey through Lent, and discover the timeless wisdom to be found in some of the world’s greatest paintings.Illustrated in full colour with over forty famous and lesser-known masterpieces of Western art, this beautiful book will lead you into a deeply prayerful response to all that these paintings convey to the discerning eye.‘For those who want to appreciate the spirituality behind some of the world’s greatest works of art, this book will be hugely inspiring – not only during Lent but at any time of the year.’Dr Janina Ramirez, art historian and broadcaster
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Art of Holy Week and Easter
‘For those who want to appreciate the spirituality behind some of the world’s greatest works of art, this book will be hugely inspiring – not only during Lent but at any time of the year.’ - Janina RamirezBrimming with Sister Wendy's irrepressible wisdom and enthusiasm, this little book explores the spiritual riches to be found in some of the world’s greatest paintings of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. Illustrated in full colour with thirty famous and lesser-known masterpieces of Western art, here is a chance to hear again the voice of Sister Wendy as she gently leads you into a deeper appreciation of all that these paintings convey to the discerning eye.'Sister Wendy’s deep and insightful commentaries are utterly unique.' - Delia Smith
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Dare To Be True
When celebrated poet Wendy Cope first encountered the work of George Herbert, she was captivated by his wit, craftsmanship and depth of thought. She took to him immediately.Herbert's verse, playful in form yet profound in reflection, continues to speak across the centuries, uniting poetic artistry with questions of meaning, belief and the human condition.In Dare to Be True, Cope introduces readers to Herbert's poetry and prose with warmth and insight, illuminating his struggle between worldly ambition and spiritual purpose.Drawing on Herbert's friendships with John Donne and Lancelot Andrewes, she situates him within the rich world of seventeenth-century literature and faith.From his celebrated poem Love (III) - described by Simone Weil as "the most beautiful poem in the world" - to lesser-known works revealing his honesty and humour, this collection invites a new generation to rediscover the clarity, depth and craftsmanship of Herbert's voice.As T. S. Eliot once wrote, Herbert is "a major poet" and in this volume, readers will see why.Perfect for readers of poetry, literary history, and those drawn to reflections on art, faith and human experience - from Wendy Cope to T. S. Eliot and beyond.
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Wendy
The outrageously funny and painfully relatable satire of an aspiring artist and millennial culture Walter Scott's Wendy comics have become a critical sensation, with rave reviews in The New Yorker and The Guardian, and an appearance in the Best American Comics anthology. Learn Wendy's origin story as Scott hilariously plumbs millennial culture, creative ennui, and the nepotism of the art world's institutions. Wendy's an aspiring artist in a party city, and she's in a rut. She spends her time snorting mdma in gallery bathrooms and watching Nurse Jackie reruns on her laptop while hungover. So when she's accepted into the prestigious Flojo Island residency, Wendy vows to buckle down and get working. But during the remote, woodsy residency, Wendy and her collaborator/bff Winona put on a performance piece that becomes the centre of an art world controversy, and so Wendy returns to Montreal, getting a job in a coffee shop to make ends meet. With Wendy, Scott launches the Wendyverse, brimming with painfully relatable characters like the back-stabbing frenemy Tina, the name-dropping Paloma, the cool drummer Wendy obsesses over, Jeff, and of course, our treasured Wendy, the hot mess we can't live without. In blunt, laugh out loud funny vignettes with perfect punchlines, Scott illuminates the opacity of artspeak and the ceaseless anxieties plaguing a largely privileged generation.
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Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology
"While focusing on the central problem of evil, O'Fiaherty illuminates every aspect of Hindu thought." (Choice). "This is Dr. O'Flaherty's third book on Indian mythology, and the best yet. The range and number of myths handled is dazzling ...Moreover, her fluent and lucid style make reading a pleasure ...a major contribution to the study of religion in general and Hinduism in particular." (Times Literary Supplement). "This scholarly work is a welcome and valuable addition to Hindu studies because it corrects the widespread belief that Hindu thought does not recognize the problem of evil. The author shows conclusively that the mythology of tribal societies and the Puranas deal with this question extensively. She traces certain conceptual attitudes towards evil from the Vedic period to the present day." (Library Journal). "O'Flaherty has accomplished an important double task. She has reoriented our thinking on the Indian experience of evil as it has been given literary expression in the mythological texts of the Sanskrit tradition and to a lesser extent in the Tamil and tribal traditions as well.She has also provided, in this rich and exquisitely crafted book, a new set of vantage points from which to re-read familiar Indian myths and encounter new ones...Origins is both a superb piece of scholarship and a lively, witty and engagingly written book." (South Asia in Review). "The author performs a brilliant feat in her textually exegetical and hermeneutical handling of the numerous and many-faceted myths. The study is highly pertinent and valuable ...The authorial translations from the Hindu and Pali texts are refreshing ...and her comments are illuminating. Thus the Hindu view of evil comes out as something not simplistic and arbitrary but as an approach which is careful, complex, and richly eclectic...This is a highly readable volume written with verve, sparkle and occasional light touches of decent humor." (Asian Student). "For serious students of mythology, theology and Hinduism, this book is must reading." (Religious Studies Review).
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Englishness and Empire 1939-1965
Did loss of imperial power and the end of empire have any significant impact on British culture and identity after 1945? Within a burgeoning literature on national identity and what it means to be British this is a question that has received surprisingly little attention. Englishness and Empire makes an important and original contribution to recent debates about the domestic consequences of the end of empire. Wendy Webster explores popular narratives of nation in the mainstream media archive - newspapers, newsreels, radio, film, and television. The contours of the study generally follow stories told through prolific filmic and television imagery: the Second World War, the Coronation and Everest, colonial wars of the 1950s, and Winston Churchill's funeral. The book analyses three main narratives that conflicted and collided in the period - a Commonwealth that promised to maintain Britishness as aglobal identity; siege narratives of colonial wars and immigration that showed a 'little England' threatened by empire and its legacies; and a story of national greatness, celebrating the martial masculinity of British officers and leaders, through which imperial identity leaked into narratives of theSecond World War developed after 1945. The book also explores the significance of America to post-imperial Britain. Englishness and Empire considers how far, and in what contexts and unexpected places, imperial identity and loss of imperial power resonated in popular narratives of nataion. As the first monograph to investigate the significance of empire and its legacies in shaping national identity after 1945, this is an important study for all scholars interested in questions of national identity and their intersections with gender, race, empire, immigration, and decolonization.
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