General Books

Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest

Greg Carlisle

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Elegant Complexity is the first critical work to provide detailed and thorough commentary on each of the 192 sections of David Foster Wallace's masterful Infinite Jest. No other commentary on Infinite Jest recognizes that Wallace clearly divided the book into 28 chapters that are thematically unified. A chronology at the end of the study reorders each section of the novel into a sequential timeline that orients the reader and that could be used to support a chronological reading of the novel. Other helpful reference materials include a thematic outline, more chronologies, a map of one the novel's settings, lists of characters grouped by association, and an indexed list of references. Elegant Complexity orients the reader at the beginning of each section and keeps commentary separate for those readers who only want orientation. The researcher looking for specific characters or themes is provided a key at the beginning of each commentary. Carlisle explains the novel's complex plot threads (and discrepancies) with expert insight and clear commentary. The book is 99% spoiler-free for first-time readers of Infinite Jest.

Does Harry Potter Tickle Sleeping Dragons?

Nancy Solon Villaluz

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

You've never delved into Harry Potter like this!
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In summer 2007, the collective tension was palpable. One by one, legions of breathless fans reached the bittersweet end of the Harry Potter series: rewarded for years of patience, yet experiencing odd combinations of understanding and bewilderment, relief and grief, satisfaction with ravenous pining, and often wondering, 'Is that really all there is?'

Well.... That just depends on how you look at it.

While J.K. Rowling confirmed that her Harry Potter series has concluded, she also expressed her intent that the Harry Potter books not be fully understood at first reading: not at all. Considering Rowling's cleverness, it would be sad - and also wrong - to think that now knowing the crescendo of events in Deathly Hallows' Chapters 32-36 also means we've fully deciphered absolutely everything in the preceding 4000 pages. Far from it! Beyond the romantic hook-ups, humor, adventure, snogging, red herrings, and even the deaths, Rowling's many-layered series still contains veiled intricacies and misunderstood themes eagerly waiting to be savored with fresh insight. In fact, many of Harry's greatest accomplishments and shrouded secrets remain virtually unnoticed by vast multitudes of readers...including some of Rowling's brightest fans. Of course, that isn't an insult to the fans, but rather, a compliment to the genius of the author.

Since Harry's inception nearly two decades ago, Rowling has scattered a myriad of clues that, bit by bit, illuminate the complex mosaic of Harry's secrets and fly in the face of various criticisms. The problem is that exploring and understanding the growing plethora of hints could take years of research and study.

Not to worry.

A Harry Potter fan herself since 1999, author Nancy Solon Villaluz spent five years doing exactly that: fervently researching and writing her compelling new commentary on Rowling's Harry Potter series, 'Does Harry Potter Tickle Sleeping Dragons?' Inside you will plunge into a challenging, in-depth analysis of all seven (7) of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels, her companion books, and her influences.

Does Harry Potter Tickle Sleeping Dragons? takes readers on a thought-provoking journey that daringly tackles the deeper mysteries of 'Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus,' guides Potter aficionados beyond the warm shallows of J.K. Rowling's world into the hidden depths of Harry's richness, and sets a high new standard of excellence for Potter fans. Many will be stunned, others might even be offended; but how many could possibly suspect the veritable banquet quietly lingering right within Harry's own pages...just waiting for anyone brave enough to approach the Sleeping Dragons' lair.

Do you dare come along?

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EXCERPT FROM THE HARD COVER DUST JACKET:

'...Always true to Ms. Rowling's texts and interviews, this adventurous expert-level commentary takes readers on a compelling, witty, and intensely challenging exploration of the Harry Potter series. Rather than rushed conjectures and opinions, you will instead feast on the fruit of 5 years of passionate research and accurately honed insights wrought by a patient author who first let J.K. Rowling finish telling her tale.

Inside, a journey awaits in which you will discover how a school motto, clandestine faith, and a bunch of books for kids have accomplished the unimaginable. So surprising is the evidence within these pages, that even Harry's most devoted fans may find the need to go back afresh and delight in reading Rowling's Harry Potter epic again...for the first time.'

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Bookclub-In-A-Box Discusses the Novel the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Bookclub-in-a-Box)

Marilyn Herbert

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Kite Runner has the distinction of being the first English-language fiction written about Afghanistan, by Hosseini, a former Afghan doctor who fled his native country in 1980 as it became immersed in civil war. Bookclub-in-a-Box offers insight into the world so movingly described by Hosseini in his first novel. The novel tells of relationship of two boys who are born, live and play side by side, Yet there is no equality in their connection. Hosseini takes his story through three decades which includes Communism and Soviet occupation, as well as the arrival of the Mujahideen and the reign of terror that followed. Bookclub-in-a-Box reviews the following topics: An examination of the complex relationship of Amir and Hassan, especially juxtaposed against the political and cultural backdrop of their times. Through the relationship of the two boys with each other and with others, the reader will reflect on how those personal and political realities can be intertwined. There will be references to the concepts of master and bully . The images of the kite and the kite-runner are appropriate symbols for Afghanistan and will be considered in that light. Readers will be inspired to seek out other metaphors in this rich novel. Afghanistan has been forever changed by its different masters, for example, the Russians, the Taliban. Bookclub-in-a-Box will encourage the reader to examine the devastation of Afghanistan, as portrayed in the lives of the novel s characters, and to see and understand the kind of human suffering that occurred behind the newspaper headlines. Every Bookclub-in-a-Box discussion guide includes complete coverage of themes, symbols, writing style, as well as interesting and little known background information on the novel and the author.

The Transcendentalists

Barbara L. Packer

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Editorial Review:

Barbara L. Packer's long essay "The Transcendentalists" is widely acknowledged by scholars of nineteenth-century American literary history as the best-written, most comprehensive treatment to date of Transcendentalism. Previously existing only as part of a volume in the magisterial Cambridge History of American Literature, it will now be available for the first time in a stand-alone edition.

Packer presents Transcendentalism as a living movement, evolving out of such origins as New England Unitarianism and finding early inspiration in European Romanticism. Transcendentalism changed religious beliefs, philosophical ideas, literary styles, and political allegiances. In addition, it was a social movement whose members collaborated on projects and formed close personal ties. Transcendentalism contains vigorous thought and expression throughout, says Packer; only a study of the entire movement can explain its continuing sway over American thought.

Through fresh readings of both the essential Transcendentalist texts and the best current scholarship, Packer conveys the movement's genuine expectations that its radical spirituality not only would lead to personal perfection but also would inspire solutions to such national problems as slavery and disfranchisement. Here is Transcendentalism in whole, with Emerson, Thoreau, and Fuller restored to their place alongside such contemporaries as Bronson Alcott, George Ripley, Jones Very, Theodore Parker, James Freeman Clarke, Orestes Brownson, and Frederick Henry Hedge.

Energy of Delusion: A Book on Plot

Viktor Shklovsky

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Editorial Review:

One of the greatest literary minds of the twentieth century, Viktor Shklovsky writes the critical Equivalent of what Ross Chambers calls "loiterature"--writing that roams, playfully digresses, moving freely between the literary work and the world. In Energy of Delusion, a masterpiece that Shklovsky worked on over thirty years, he turns his unique critical sensibility to Tolstoy's life and novels, applying the famous "formalist method" he invented in the 1920s to Tolstoy's massive body of work, and at the same time taking Tolstoy (as well as Boccaccio, Pushkin, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, and Turgenev) as a springboard to consider the devices of literature--how novels work and what they do. Available in English for the first time, Energy of Delusion provides contemporary readers with a new way of thinking about how great literature is written (andhow great criticism might be) that is as timely today as ever.

Bookclub-in-a-Box Discusses the Novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Bookclub-in-a-Box)

Marilyn Herbert

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Editorial Review:

The Namesake tells the story of a newly married couple, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, who emigrate to the United States from India. Not long after they arrive, their first child, a son, is born and there is an immediate clash of cultures. In the Bengali tradition, the ritual of naming a baby can take up to forty-one days after birth. But in America, bureaucracy demands that the baby not be released from hospital without a name on his birth certificate. Luckily, Indian tradition allows for a pet or nickname to be chosen and, oddly, the parents choose the name Gogol after the Russian writer, Nikolai Gogol. The result of a name that connects Lahiri's Gogol to neither his American birth nor his Indian heritage is the beginning of a search for personal identity. This novel has been made into a wonderful film with the same name from director, Mira Nair. The guide to Lahiri s novel includes information on the following: Why is the namesake of an American-born child with Bengali roots a famous, but disturbed, Russian author? How do our names impact on who we are and who we become? What is the impact of immigration on both parents and children? How do Lahiri's skills as a short-story writer influence her presentation of the story? Every Bookclub-in-a-Box discussion guide includes complete coverage of the themes and symbols, writing style and interesting background information on the novel and the author.

Caleb Williams (Penguin Classics)

William Godwin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Man is the only common foe of man 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This novel is a forceful combination of political / social / judicial criticism, thriller elements and a powerful investigation into the real nature of man.

Politically, the author castigates the chasm between what one ought to do and reality: `We that are rich must do every thing in our power to lighten the yoke of these unfortunate people. We must not use the advantage that accident has given us with an unmerciful hand.' Nevertheless, `wealth and despotism easily know how to engage those laws as the coadjutor of their oppression, which were perhaps at first intended for the safeguards of the poor.'
Justice is totally biased: `Mr. Falkland is a man of rank and fortune; he is your master. I am a poor country lad without a friend in the world. That is a ground of real difference ...but it is not a sufficient ground for the subversion of justice.'
But, `law has neither eyes, nor ears, nor bowels of humanity; and it turns into marble the hearts of all those that are nursed in its principle.'
Socially, the system is fundamentally corrupt, a synonym for `tyranny and perfidiousness exercised by the powerful members of the community against those who were less privileged than themselves.'

Godwin's vision of the world is pessimistic: `Accursed world! that hates without a cause' that overwhelms innocence with calamities which ought to be spared even to guilt! Accursed world! dead to every manly sympathy; with eyes of horn, and hearts of steel!'
His picture of fundamental human selfishness, of pure evil and of despotic and resentful emotions and actions is impressive. He is baffled by man's `hero'worship: `Man is surely a strange sort of creature, who never praise any one more heartily than him who has spread destruction and ruin over the face of nature.'
He sees however one bright spot: freedom of the mind: `The mind is master of itself; and is endowed with powers that might enable to laugh at the tyrant's vigilance.'

The novel has one minus point: its final with an ultimate reversal in the psychological warfare. It seems incredible and improbable (a destruction by suspicion).
However, it is a very compelling read, a real discovery.

Not to be missed.

Editorial Review:

When honest young Caleb Williams comes to work as a secretary for Squire Falkland, he soon begins to suspect that his new master is hiding a secret. As he digs deeper into Falkland’s past and finally unearths the horrible truth, the results of his curiosity prove calamitous when—even though Caleb has loyally sworn never to disclose what he has discovered—the Squire enacts a cruel revenge. A tale of gripping suspense and psychological power, William Godwin’s novel creates a searing depiction of the intolerable persecution meted out to a good man in pursuit of justice and equality. Written to expose the political oppression and corrupt hierarchies its author saw in the world around him, Caleb Williams makes a radical call to end the tyrannical misuses of power.

Bookclub-in-a-Box Discusses the novel Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (Book Club in a Box)

Marilyn Herbert

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Editorial Review:

Suite Francaise is simply one of the most extraordinary books of the century. The setting is World War II and the year is 1940. After a lightening-quick defeat, France was divided into two parts the occupied zone controlled by the Nazis and the unoccupied zone controlled by Petain s Vichy government. Nemirovsky and her family were caught in the middle. Irene Nemirovsky intended to document the story of the war going on around her. She completed just two of the sections before she was arrested and transported to Auschwitz. This guide includes information on the Irene Nemirovsky, as a writer, a witness, and a participant in the war. Discover the amazing story of how this hidden novel resurfaced sixty-two years after Nemirovsky s death. Appreciate the author's unique perspective of her fellow countrymen and the German occupiers. Uncover Nemirovsky s surprising use of 'hindsight', a technique that was simply not logistically possible due to her untimely death. Finally, the guide will consider this author's legacy. Every Bookclub-in-a-Box discussion guide includes complete coverage of the themes and symbols, writing style and interesting background information on the novel and the author.

The Language and Imagery of the Bible

George B. Caird

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Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity -> Reference -> Criticism & Interpretation -> General

Editorial Review:

Communication through language is an important area of study and has been examined by specialists from a variety of disciplines. Caird, Dean Ireland?s Professor of Exegesis of Holy Scripture at Oxford, has written an exceptional and well-organized compilation of the best of such study, both past and present. He has provided invaluable guidance for the study and understanding of the Bible by explaining how verbal messages are formed, what they "say" in writing, and how they are to be understood. Drawing upon the results of modern linguistic and communications scholarship, and upon the still valid methods of rhetorical and exegetical study, Caird provides a synthesis for hermeneutics. Beginning with the uses and abuses of language, Caird goes on to discuss the nature and structure of meaning, the relations between Hebrew idiom and biblical thought, and the problems of translation, discussions which form the opening or "general" section of the book. The central section is entitled "metaphor," under which Caird treats literal and non-literal meanings (and valid distinctions between them), comparative language in metaphors, similes, and anthropomorphisms, concluding with a treatment of linguistic awareness. Finally, he devotes a section to language in relation to history, to myth, and to eschatology.

Listening to the Land: Native American Literary Responses to the Landscape

Lee Schweninger

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Editorial Review:

For better or worse, representations abound of Native Americans as a people with an innate and special connection to the earth. This study looks at the challenges faced by Native American writers who confront stereotypical representations as they assert their own ethical relationship with the earth. Lee Schweninger considers a range of genres (memoirs, novels, stories, essays) by Native writers from various parts of the United States. Contextualizing these works within the origins, evolution, and perpetuation of the "green" labels imposed upon Indians, Schweninger shows how writers often find themselves denying some land ethic stereotypes while seeming to embrace others.

Taken together, the time periods covered in Listening to the Land span more than a hundred years, from Luther Standing Bear's description of his late-nineteenth-century life on the prairie to Linda Hogan's account of a 1999 Makah hunt of a grey whale. Two-thirds of the writers Schweninger considers, however, are well-known voices from the second half of the twentieth century, including N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, Vine Deloria Jr., Gerald Vizenor, and Louis Owens.

Few ecocritical studies have focused on indigenous environmental attitudes, in comparison to related work done by historians and anthropologists. Listening to the Land will narrow this gap in the scholarship; moreover, it will add individual Native American perspectives to an understanding of what, to these writers, is a genuine Native American philosophy regarding the land.