Adrift in a Vanishing City

Adrift in a Vanishing City
Author: Vincent Czyz
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: Short stories, American
ISBN: 9781495106057

Fiction. Preface by Samuel R. Delany. "Deeply romantic (in the best sense) and darkly evocative, Czyz's lush style explores regions well beyond simple narrative, probing the constantly shifting, oblique connections between failure, memory and the forever-incomplete nature of human desire. A moody, gorgeous and formally innovative collection, ADRIFT IN A VANISHING CITY deserves a wide audience among readers who understand that fiction is about more than getting a character from one room to the next." Greg Burkman, The Seattle Times "Written in hauntingly lyrical prose, Czyz's short stories unfold like a vivid tapestry that is held together by the] thread of human experience." Michelle Howe, Newark Star Ledger "Certain books require a patient reader, one with the ability to concentrate closely and intently. Sentences are not straightforward or transparent, but long and labyrinthine, like intriguing yet shadowy dreams. The writing, more like poetry than prose, calls attention to language, to the fullness of a word, a sentence, with the purpose of expressing inexpressible emotions and experiences. Think of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past or Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury or, more recently, William Vollmann's Fathers and Crows. ...] Vincent Czyz's ADRIFT IN A VANISHING CITY is just this sort of work: lyrical and pensive, an odd and often beautiful portrait of longing." Capper Nichols, Minnesota Daily"

Shorter Views

Shorter Views
Author: Samuel R. Delany
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2012-01-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0819571970

In Shorter Views, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Samuel R. Delany brings his remarkable intellectual powers to bear on a wide range of topics. Whether he is exploring the deeply felt issues of identity, race, and sexuality, untangling the intricacies of literary theory, or the writing process itself, Delany is one of the most lucid and insightful writers of our time. These essays cluster around topics related to queer theory on the one hand, and on the other, questions concerning the paraliterary genres: science fiction, pornography, comics, and more. Readers new to Delany's work will find this collection of shorter pieces an especially good introduction, while those already familiar with his writing will appreciate having these essays between two covers for the first time.

Through a Screen Darkly

Through a Screen Darkly
Author: Ahron Friedberg
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2021-05-05
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000383644

Winner of the 2022 Gradiva® Award for Best Book – Historic Moment for Reflection! This book offers real-time, intimate reflections on Dr. Friedberg’s patients as they struggle with COVID-19 and its disruptive, dispiriting fallout. Through a Screen Darkly identifies the psychological distress caused by the pandemic, examining how the particular elements of COVID-19 – its ability to be spread by those who seem not to have it, its intractability, the long-term uncertainty that it engenders – leave even relatively stable people shaken and unsure of the future. The book examines how, amidst radical uncertainty and the prospect of massive social change, such people learn to become resilient. The main theme of the book is that, of necessity, we learn to adapt. Though we still can only see "darkly," we can call on the resources that we have, as well as those we can reasonably acquire, so as to retain a sense of our dignity and purpose. Through a Screen Darkly examines what is possible now as the pandemic runs its course. It makes no predictions of how all this will ultimately play out, but offers a time capsule of how people have coped with a disease that landed suddenly and that we still do not fully understand. Offering a series of intense encounters with worried, traumatized people, this book will be invaluable to in-training and practicing psychiatrists, as it points to the several possible directions for our national, psychological recovery from the pandemic.

Istanbul

Istanbul
Author: Orhan Pamuk
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2006-12-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307386481

From the Nobel Prize winner and acclaimed author of My Name is Red comes a portrait of Istanbul by its foremost writer, revealing the melancholy that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost empire. "Delightful, profound, marvelously origina.... Pamuk tells the story of the city through the eyes of memory." —The Washington Post Book World A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share. With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, unhappy parents to the gorgeous, decrepit mansions overlooking the Bosphorus; from the dawning of his self-consciousness to the writers and painters—both Turkish and foreign—who would shape his consciousness of his city. Like Joyce’s Dublin and Borges’ Buenos Aires, Pamuk’s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.

Vanishing Monuments

Vanishing Monuments
Author: John Elizabeth Stintzi
Publisher: arsenal pulp press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2020-05-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1551528029

Alani Baum, a non-binary photographer and teacher, hasn’t seen their mother since they ran away with their girlfriend when they were seventeen -- almost thirty years ago. But when Alani gets a call from a doctor at the assisted living facility where their mother has been for the last five years, they learn that their mother’s dementia has worsened and appears to have taken away her ability to speak. As a result, Alani suddenly find themselves running away again -- only this time, they’re running back to their mother. Staying at their mother’s empty home, Alani attempts to tie up the loose ends of their mother’s life while grappling with the painful memories that—in the face of their mother’s disease -- they’re terrified to lose. Meanwhile, the memories inhabiting the house slowly grow animate, and the longer Alani is there, the longer they’re forced to confront the fact that any closure they hope to get from this homecoming will have to be manufactured. This beautiful, tenderly written debut novel by Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers winner John Elizabeth Stintzi explores what haunts us most, bearing witness to grief over not only what is lost, but also what remains. This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. A Simple book with few images, which is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.

Disquiet

Disquiet
Author: Zülfü Livaneli
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2021-06-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1635420334

World Literature Today: Notable Translation of the Year PopMatters: Best Book of the Year From the internationally bestselling author of Serenade for Nadia, a powerful story of love and faith amidst the atrocities committed by ISIS against the Yazidi people. Disquiet transports the reader to the contemporary Middle East through the stories of Meleknaz, a Yazidi Syrian refugee, and Hussein, a young man from the Turkish city of Mardin near the Syrian border. Passionate about helping others, Hussein begins visiting a refugee camp to tend to the thousands of poor and sick streaming into Turkey, fleeing ISIS. There, he falls in love with Meleknaz—whom his disapproving family will call “the devil” who seduced him—and their relationship sets further tragedy in motion. A nuanced meditation on the nature of being human and an empathetic, probing look at the past and present of these Mesopotamian lands, Disquiet gives voice to the peoples, faiths, histories, and stories that have swept through this region over centuries.

Master Class

Master Class
Author: Paul West
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2001
Genre: Education
ISBN:

One of America's most beloved prose stylists gives readers and writers their own personal seminar on the art of great fiction.

Vanishing America

Vanishing America
Author: James Conaway
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2008-10-10
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1619022028

A mixture of travelogue and personal narrative, James Conaway's smart, informative essays offer an insightful depiction of his journeys between Washington, D.C., and Big Sur, California, as he tries to understand what has become of the places, people, and traditions that were once so precious but have now been irreparably changed. Incorporating the voices of cowboys, real estate agents, activists, and many others, he raises vital questions about the merits of sprawling development and the ever–increasing use of resources in the name of "progress." He urges us to consider the value of preservation in our growth–driven culture, as well as the ramifications of prosperity on the places important to our national identity.