As Amazing Tales—First Series by Ling Mengchu (1580-1644) made a hit, the publisher urged him to write a sequel to it. This gave rise to Amazing Tales—Second Series, which has become another bestseller for the last few centuries. Our English version of the Second Series features 19 stories carefully chosen from the original 40. In fascinating plots and a highly expressive colloquial language, they are mostly about women’s fate, their miserable existence in a polygamous society, their daring struggle for genuine love, and their implications in legal cases. All these shed precious light on the social mosaic of seventeenth-century China.
Stories of heroism, exploration, and sacrifice -- including Apollo XIII and Scott of the Antarctic -- that inspire boys to be courageous, selfless, and open to adventure Tales of brave and selfless deeds used to be part of every boy’s education. We grew up sharing stories with our fathers, uncles, and grandfathers of how other men had lived their lives, met their challenges, reached their goals, and faced their deaths. Becoming a man was about comradeship and standing by your friends whatever the circumstances. And it meant that sometimes it was more important to die a hero than live a coward’s life. Through Neil Oliver’s vivid, stirring accounts we can rediscover the stories that inspire men to perform acts greater than themselves. These are the epics that we should all know by heart; the tales of courage, endurance, and sacrifice that made men out of boys. Amazing Tales for Making Men Out of Boys is packed with classic stories of courage and heroism from around the world and includes four stories especially for the American edition: Omaha Beach, June 6th 1944; The Alamo; The Civil War Battle of Shilo; and The Revolutionary War Sea Battle of John Paul Jones and the Bon Homme Richard.
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York’s Golden Age of comics, now with special bonus material by the author “It's absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal—smart, funny, and a continual pleasure to read.”—The Washington Post Book World One of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Books of the Decade • Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize A “towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book” (Newsweek), hailed as Chabon’s “magnum opus” (The New York Review of Books), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939. A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink. Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America’s finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age. Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and the New York Society Library Book Award
Calling all Tribe fans! In this one-of-a-kind compendium of anecdotes from players, managers, and beat writers, Russell Schneider captures all the magic and passion of Cleveland Indians baseball. Amazing Tales from the Cleveland Indians Dugout is a colorful journey through the history of the franchise. Included are the best memories and stories in the players’ and managers’ own words, as found in Schneider’s Tales from the Tribe Dugout and More Tales from the Tribe Dugout. Within these pages, fans will chafe at the rivalries, cheer the wins, and challenge the losses both on the road and at home. Max Alvis reveals his most embarrassing moment on the field, Mickey Cochrane orders Harry Eisenstat to intentionally bean a batter, and Doc Edwards groans in agony during the game in which he finally figures out Cal Ripken’s signals to the outfield (the Indians scored ten runs by knowing which pitch was coming and still managed to lose). Featured players include the Alomar brothers, Lou Boudreau, Orel Hershiser, Ralph Kiner, Minnie Minoso, Omar Vizquel, and many other Tribe legends. This massive collection captures the story and glory of Indians baseball both on the field and off. Without a doubt, this tantalizing offering from Indians expert Russell Schneider will provide hours of entertainment for Indians and baseball fans alike.
This book presents a comprehensive and systematic study of the narrative history and narrative methods of Chinese and Western popular fiction from the perspectives of narratology, comparative literature, and art and literature studies by adopting the methodology of parallel comparison. The book is a pioneering work that systematically investigates the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western popular fiction, and traces the root causes leading to the differences. By means of narrative comparison, it explores the conceptual and spiritual correlations and differences between Chinese and Western popular fiction and, by relating them to the root causes of cultural spirit, allows us to gain an insight into the cultural heritage of different nations. The book is structured in line with a cause-and-effect logical sequence and moves from the macroscopic to the microscopic, from history to reality, and from theory to practice. The integration of macro-level theoretical studies and micro-level case studies is both novel and effective. This book was awarded Second Prize at the Sixth Outstanding Achievement Awards in Scientific Research for Chinese Institutions of Higher Learning (Humanities & Social Sciences, 2013).
Photographs and text chronicle the history of the Alpine Cowboys, the semipro baseball team from Texas's Big Bend region, describing owner Herbert L. Kokernot Jr., the team's players, stadium, and fans, and related topics.
Slapping the Table in Amazement is the unabridged English translation of the famous story collection Pai’an jingqi by Ling Mengchu (1580–1644), originally published in 1628. The forty lively stories gathered here present a broad picture of traditional Chinese society and include characters from all social levels. We learn of their joys and sorrows, their views about life and death, and their visions of the underworld and the supernatural. Ling was a connoisseur of popular literature and a seminal figure in the development of Chinese literature in the vernacular, which paved the way for the late-imperial Chinese novel. Slapping the Table in Amazement includes translations of verse and prologue stories as well as marginal and interlinear comments.
