First Words, Last Words

First Words, Last Words

Author: Yigal Bronner

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0197583474

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"First Words, Last Words charts an intense "pamphlet war" that took place in sixteenth-century South India. The book explores this controversy as a case study in the dynamics of innovation in early modern India, a time of great intellectual innovation. This debate took place within the traditional discourses of Vedic Hermeneutics, or Mīmāṃsā, and its increasingly influential sibling discipline of Vedānta, and its proponents among the leading intellectuals and public figures of the period. At the heart of this dispute lies the role of sequence in the cognitive processing of textual information, especially of a scriptural nature. Vyāsatīrtha and his grand-pupil Vijayīndratīrtha, writers belonging to the camp of Dualist Vedānta, purported to uphold the radical view of their founding father, Madhva, who believed, against a long tradition of Mīmāṃsā interpreters, that the closing portion of a scriptural passage should govern the interpretation of its opening. By contrast, the Nondualist Appayya Dikshita ostensibly defended this tradition's preference for the opening. But, as the book shows, the debaters gradually converged on a profoundly novel hermeneutic-cognitive theory in which sequence played little role, if any. In fact, they knowingly broke new ground, and only postured as traditionalists. First Words, Last Words explores the nature of theoretical innovation in this debate and sets it against the background of comparative examples from other major scriptural interpretive traditions. The book briefly surveys the use of sequence in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic hermeneutics and also seeks out parallel cases of covert innovation in these traditions"--


Last Words from Montmartre

Last Words from Montmartre

Author: Qiu Miaojin

Publisher: New York Review of Books

Published: 2014-06-03

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1590177258

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An NYRB Classics Original When the pioneering Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin committed suicide in 1995 at age twenty-six, she left behind her unpublished masterpiece, Last Words from Montmartre. Unfolding through a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator, Last Words tells the story of a passionate relationship between two young women—their sexual awakening, their gradual breakup, and the devastating aftermath of their broken love. In a style that veers between extremes, from self-deprecation to pathos, compulsive repetition to rhapsodic musings, reticence to vulnerability, Qiu’s genre-bending novel is at once a psychological thriller, a sublime romance, and the author’s own suicide note. The letters (which, Qiu tells us, can be read in any order) leap between Paris, Taipei, and Tokyo. They display wrenching insights into what it means to live between cultures, languages, and genders—until the genderless character Zoë appears, and the narrator’s spiritual and physical identity is transformed. As powerfully raw and transcendent as Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask, Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Theresa Cha’s Dictée, to name but a few, Last Words from Montmartre proves Qiu Miaojin to be one of the finest experimentalists and modernist Chinese-language writers of our generation.


Last Words of the Executed

Last Words of the Executed

Author: Robert K. Elder

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-05-15

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 0226202690

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Some beg for forgiveness. Others claim innocence. At least three cheer for their favorite football teams. Death waits for us all, but only those sentenced to death know the day and the hour—and only they can be sure that their last words will be recorded for posterity. Last Words of the Executed presents an oral history of American capital punishment, as heard from the gallows, the chair, and the gurney. The product of seven years of extensive research by journalist Robert K. Elder, the book explores the cultural value of these final statements and asks what we can learn from them. We hear from both the famous—such as Nathan Hale, Joe Hill, Ted Bundy, and John Brown—and the forgotten, and their words give us unprecedented glimpses into their lives, their crimes, and the world they inhabited. Organized by era and method of execution, these final statements range from heartfelt to horrific. Some are calls for peace or cries against injustice; others are accepting, confessional, or consoling; still others are venomous, rage-fueled diatribes. Even the chills evoked by some of these last words are brought on in part by the shared humanity we can’t ignore, their reminder that we all come to the same end, regardless of how we arrive there. Last Words of the Executed is not a political book. Rather, Elder simply asks readers to listen closely to these voices that echo history. The result is a riveting, moving testament from the darkest corners of society.


The Last Words We Said

The Last Words We Said

Author: Leah Scheier

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2022-09-27

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1534469400

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Nine months after Danny disappeared, his closest friends, Ellie, Rae, and Deenie, deal with their loss very differently but will have to share secrets about the night he disappeared to uncover the truth. Chapters alternate between past and present.


Last Words on Earth

Last Words on Earth

Author: Javier Serena

Publisher:

Published: 2021-09-21

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 9781948830324

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An exploration of the excruciating travails and sudden, immeasurable success of a Roberto Bolaño-esque writer.


Her Last Words

Her Last Words

Author: Kim Kelly

Publisher: Brio Books Pty Ltd

Published: 2021-10-12

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1922598232

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A murder. A missing manuscript. An undying love. Thisbe Chisholm wants to be a writer. It's 2007, a time of digital revolution and skyrocketing property prices, but she's an old-fashioned girl. She doesn't even own a mobile phone. She has no stars-in-her-eyes desire for fame, to see her name on the cover of a book, either. She longs only to tell of the stories written on her heart. While her best friends, Penny and Jane, and her darling boyfriend, John, seem set for stellar careers in their chosen fields, Thisbe works nights as a hostess at a glitzy harbourside Sydney club - a job she despises but it's paid the rent for the last three years since university graduation. Just as she completes her novel, though, she is brutally killed at the end of John's street. Who murdered Thisbe? What will become of her novel? From the gritty glamour of Bondi Beach to the cold streets of London, here is a tale of tragedy and literary betrayal, of a publishing industry grappling with change and a great love drowning in guilt-wracked grief. Haunting, whimsical and sharply observed, Her Last Words lays bare the truth that, while some crimes might go unpunished among the privileged, words themselves have a way of enduring - and exacting a justice all their own. Praise for Kim Kelly 'deeply moving...alive, full-hearted and shimmering with hope' - Belinda Castles, Bluebottle 'Kelly is a masterful creator of character and voice.' - Julian Leatherdale, Palace of Tears 'history that makes you think as well as feel' - Wendy James, The Golden Child 'an author who writes with such a striking sense of atmosphere and sublime instinct' - Theresa Smith Writes 'storytelling is clearly encoded in her DNA' - Writerful Books 'It is uplifting to know that there are people who can write like this, with clarity, a bit of devilment and a hint of a smile.' Canberra Times 'marvellous depth and authenticity based on some impressive research, and her characters, plot and fluid prose draw the reader into this world' - Daily Telegraph 'colourful, evocative and energetic' - Sydney Morning Herald 'storytelling that breaks the rules so beautifully' - Jenn J McLeod, A Place to Remember 'Kim Kelly's writing is magnificent' - With Love for Books 'told with wit, warmth and courage' - Kylie Mason, The Newtown Review of Books 'vivid and enthralling' - Lisa Walker, The Girl with the Gold Bikini 'simply superb' - Karen Brooks, The Darkest Shore


Words at the Threshold

Words at the Threshold

Author: Lisa Smartt

Publisher: New World Library

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1608684601

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What Our Last Words Reveal About Life, Death, and the Afterlife A person’s end-of-life words often take on an eerie significance, giving tantalizing clues about the ultimate fate of the human soul. Until now, however, no author has systematically studied end-of-life communication by using examples from ordinary people. When her father became terminally ill with cancer, author Lisa Smartt began transcribing his conversations and noticed that his personality underwent inexplicable changes. Smartt’s father, once a skeptical man with a secular worldview, developed a deeply spiritual outlook in his final days — a change reflected in his language. Baffled and intrigued, Smartt began to investigate what other people have said while nearing death, collecting more than one hundred case studies through interviews and transcripts. In this groundbreaking and insightful book, Smartt shows how the language of the dying can point the way to a transcendent world beyond our own.


Fatal Last Words

Fatal Last Words

Author: Quintin Jardine

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780755329168

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One of Scotland's most successful crime writers is found dead in the author tent at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and Bob Skinner is on the case.


Last Words

Last Words

Author: Garry Radison

Publisher:

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781571685100

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Chronicles the last words and dramatic deaths of over 550 Old West personalities.