Engelska

Perspectives On Aesthetics, Art And Culture - Essays In Honour Of Lars-olof Åhlberg [Bok / Häftad]

<p><b>In his timely new book, Mikhail Shishkin, argues that Russia is not a 'riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma': we just don't know enough about it. So what is the real story behind Putin's autocratic regime and its invasion of Ukraine?</b><br/><br/>In <i>My Russia: War or Peace? </i>Shishkin traces the roots of Russia's problems, from the 'Kievan Rus' via the Grand Duchy of Moscow, empire, revolution and Cold War, to the now thirty-year-old Russian Federation. He explores the uneasy relationship between state and citizens, explains Russian attitudes to people's rights and democracy, and proposes that there are really two Russian peoples: the disillusioned and disaffected, who suffer from 'slave mentality', and those who embrace 'European' values and try to stand up to oppression.<br/><br/>Both deeply personal and taking a broader historical view, <i>My Russia</i> is a passionate, eye-opening account of a state entangled in a complex and bloody past, as well as a love letter to a conflicted country. Will Russia continue its vicious circle of upheaval and autocracy, or will its people find a way out of history - and how can we help?</p>

'Brilliant, like nobody else' Elizabeth McCracken 'Beard's curiosity and amazement are contagious' Financial Times Weaving a complex tapestry drawn from interviews, anecdotes, moments from Beard's own life, and sheer imagination, these extraordinary pieces embody the hospitality of spectacular writing: they are spaces you fall into and are reluctant to leave. From the intimate drama of everyday life - school crushes, dog clinics, divorce - to the terror and excitement of a fox lurking by a campsite or a murderer in your home, Beard flawlessly distils what it means to live deeply as we hurtle through wonder and grief, love and heartbreak. Bringing together pieces from Beard's first collection, The Boys of My Youth, and Festival Days, which was published two decades later, The Collected Works showcases Jo Ann Beard's impressive breadth, quiet brilliance, and timeless prose.

<p>Since the publication of the groundbreaking <i>Bad Feminist </i>and <i>Hunger</i>, Roxane Gay has continued to tackle the big issues embroiling society-state-sponsored violence and mass shootings, women's rights post-<i>Dobbs</i>, online disinformation, and the limits of empathy-alongside more individual matters: Can I tell my coworker her perfume makes me sneeze? Is it acceptable to schedule a daily eight a.m. meeting? In her role as a <i>New York Times </i>contributing opinion writer and the publication's "Work Friend" columnist, she reaches millions of readers with her wise voice and sharp insights.<br/><br/>With an introduction in which Gay provides the connective tissues that link her groundbreaking writing, <i>Opinions </i>is a collection of Roxane Gay's best nonfiction pieces from the past ten years, addressing a wide range of topics-politics, the culture wars, civil rights, celebrities, and much more. Offering nuanced analysis that never shies away from difficult topics, this sharp, thought-provoking anthology will delight Gay's devotees and draw new readers to this inimitable talent.</p>

<p>Leslie Jamison pushes and perfects the expansive, digressive, investigative and autobiographical essay style she emerged so spectacularly onto the literary stage with in The Empathy Exams. From a lonely whale roaming the world&apos;s oceans singing a singularly high-pitched song, to lonely people living perfect lives in online artificial realities, Jamison maps and charts the ways in which we are now haunted, have always been haunted, by our personal mythologies, by our choices, by the choices seemingly given to us by our social or political contexts. The collection is a feat of inter-linked philosophical analysis and painstaking reflection. Ranging from the journalistic to the experimental, from deeply considered ethical reflection to sumptuous descriptive prose, Jamison proves herself able to turn and test the essay in countless directions. The result is a deeply impressive and exciting tour-de-force of American literary non-fiction.</p>

<p><b>An essential new translation of the author's complete, uncensored diaries - a revelation of the idiosyncrasies and rough edges of one of the twentieth century's most influential writers</b><br/><br/><b>'The writing glimmers with sensitivity, and openness to the world' </b>- <i>The Wall Street Journal</i><br/><br/>Dating from 1909 to 1923, Franz Kafka's <i>Diaries</i> contains a broad array of writing, including accounts of daily events, assorted reflections and observations, literary sketches, drafts of letters, records of dreams, and unrevised texts of stories. This volume makes available for the first time in English a comprehensive reconstruction of Kafka's handwritten diary entries and provides substantial new content, restoring all the material omitted from previous publications - notably, names of people and undisguised details about them, a number of literary writings, and passages of a sexual nature, some of them with homoerotic overtones.<br/><br/>By faithfully reproducing the diaries' distinctive - and often surprisingly unpolished - writing as it appeared in Kafka's notebooks, translator Ross Benjamin brings to light not only the author's use of the diaries for literary invention and unsparing self-examination but also their value as a work of genius in and of themselves.</p>

<b>'We're mysterious aliens in the crowd. We jump like fleas from future to past and back again, and float like clouds of gas between nebulae; in a flash, we can reach the edge of the universe, or tunnel into a quark, or swim within a star-core... We're as unassuming as fireflies, yet our numbers grow like grass in spring. We sci-fi fans are people from the future.' -</b> <b>Cixin Liu, from the essay 'Sci-Fi Fans'</b> <i>A View from the Stars </i>features a range of short works from the past three decades of <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author Cixin Liu's prolific career, putting his nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time. This collection includes essays and interviews that shed light on Liu's experiences as a reader, writer, and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years.