Homes and Haunts
Homes and Haunts

Author: Alison Booth

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0198759096

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This is the first full-length study of literary tourism in North America as well as Britain and a unique exploration of popular response to writers, literary house museums, and the landscapes or "countries" associated with their lives and works. An interdisciplinary study ranging from 1820-1940, Homes and Haunts: Touring Writers' Shrines and Countries unites museum and tourism studies, book history, narrative theory, theories of gender, space, and things, and other approaches to depict and interpret the haunting experiences of exhibited houses and the curious history of topo-biographical writing about famous authors. In illustrated chapters that blend Victorian and recent first-person encounters that range from literary shrines and plaques to guidebooks, memoirs, portraits, and monuments, Alison Booth discusses pilgrims such as William and Mary Howitt, Anna Maria and Samuel Hall, and Elbert Hubbard, and magnetic hosts and guests as Washington Irving, Wordsworth, Martineau, Longfellow, Hawthorne, James, and Dickens. Virginia Woolf's feminist response to homes and haunts shapes a chapter on Mary Russell Mitford, Gaskell, and the Brontes, and another on the Carlyles' house and Monk's House. Booth rediscovers collections of personalities, haunted shrines, and imaginative re-enactments that have been submerged by a century of academic literary criticism.

A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses
A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses

Author: Anne Trubek

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2011-07-11

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 0812205812

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There are many ways to show our devotion to an author besides reading his or her works. Graves make for popular pilgrimage sites, but far more popular are writers' house museums. What is it we hope to accomplish by trekking to the home of a dead author? We may go in search of the point of inspiration, eager to stand on the very spot where our favorite literary characters first came to life—and find ourselves instead in the house where the author himself was conceived, or where she drew her last breath. Perhaps it is a place through which our writer passed only briefly, or maybe it really was a longtime home—now thoroughly remade as a decorator's show-house. In A Skeptic's Guide to Writers' Houses Anne Trubek takes a vexed, often funny, and always thoughtful tour of a goodly number of house museums across the nation. In Key West she visits the shamelessly ersatz shrine to a hard-living Ernest Hemingway, while meditating on his lost Cuban farm and the sterile Idaho house in which he committed suicide. In Hannibal, Missouri, she walks the fuzzy line between fact and fiction, as she visits the home of the young Samuel Clemens—and the purported haunts of Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and Injun' Joe. She hits literary pay-dirt in Concord, Massachusetts, the nineteenth-century mecca that gave home to Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau—and yet could not accommodate a surprisingly complex Louisa May Alcott. She takes us along the trail of residences that Edgar Allan Poe left behind in the wake of his many failures and to the burned-out shell of a California house with which Jack London staked his claim on posterity. In Dayton, Ohio, a charismatic guide brings Paul Laurence Dunbar to compelling life for those few visitors willing to listen; in Cleveland, Trubek finds a moving remembrance of Charles Chesnutt in a house that no longer stands. Why is it that we visit writers' houses? Although admittedly skeptical about the stories these buildings tell us about their former inhabitants, Anne Trubek carries us along as she falls at least a little bit in love with each stop on her itinerary and finds in each some truth about literature, history, and contemporary America.

Drifting House
Drifting House

Author: Krys Lee

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-02-02

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1101571977

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An unflinching portrayal of the Korean immigrant experience from an extraordinary new talent in fiction. Spanning Korea and the United States, from the postwar era to contemporary times, Krys Lee's stunning fiction debut, Drifting House, illuminates a people torn between the traumas of their collective past and the indignities and sorrows of their present. In the title story, children escaping famine in North Korea are forced to make unthinkable sacrifices to survive. The tales set in America reveal the immigrants' unmoored existence, playing out in cramped apartments and Koreatown strip malls. A makeshift family is fractured when a shaman from the old country moves in next door. An abandoned wife enters into a fake marriage in order to find her kidnapped daughter. In the tradition of Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker and Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, Drifting House is an unforgettable work by a gifted new writer.

House of Fiction
House of Fiction

Author: Phyllis Richardson

Publisher: Unbound Publishing

Published: 2017-07-27

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 1783523816

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From the gothic fantasies of Walpole’s Otranto to post-modern takes on the country house by Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan, Phyllis Richardson guides us on a tour through buildings real and imagined to examine how authors’ personal experiences helped to shape the homes that have become icons of English literature. We encounter Jane Austen drinking ‘too much wine’ in the lavish ballroom of a Hampshire manor, discover how Virginia Woolf’s love of Talland House at St Ives is palpable in To the Lighthouse, and find Evelyn Waugh remembering Madresfield Court as he plots Charles Ryder’s return to Brideshead. Drawing on historical sources, biographies, letters, diaries and the novels themselves, House of Fiction opens the doors to these celebrated houses, while offering candid glimpses of the writers who brought them to life.

House of Spines
House of Spines

Author: Michael J Malone

Publisher: Orenda Books

Published: 2017-08-16

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1495628159

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DIVWhen a young man inherits a vast mansion from an estranged great-uncle, his apparent good fortune sours when unsettling things begin to happen … A terrifying psychological thriller cum gothic ghost story from the bestselling author of A Suitable Lie. ‘A beautifully written tale, original, engrossing and scary. It's a wonderful mixture, a psychological thriller with a touch of a ghost story (sort of), a dollop of the supernatural (but not really) and murder (perhaps), told through the vision of a druggie poet who hasn't taken his medicine and is therefore an unreliable witness (or is he?) … a dark joy' The Times ‘A deeply satisfying read' Sunday Times ‘A fine, page-turning thriller' Daily Mail _________________ What you see isn't always real… Ran McGhie's world has been turned upside down. A young, lonely and frustrated writer, and suffering from mental-health problems, he discovers that his long-dead mother was related to one of Glasgow's oldest merchant families. Not only that, Ran has inherited Newton Hall, a vast mansion that belonged to his great-uncle, who had been watching from afar as his estranged great-nephew grew up. Entering his new-found home, it seems Great-uncle Alexander has turned it into a temple to the written word – the perfect place for poet Ran. But everything is not as it seems. As he explores the Hall's endless corridors, Ran's grasp on reality appears to be loosening. And then he comes across an ancient lift; and in that lift a mirror. And in the mirror … the reflection of a woman. A terrifying psychological thriller with more than a hint of the gothic, House of Spines is a love letter to the power of books, and a reminder that lust and betrayal can be deadly… _________________ Praise for Michael J. Malone: ‘House of Spines is a gothic ghost story and psychological thriller all rolled into one. Brilliantly creepy, with a dash of Glasgow humour, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. A spine-tingling treat' Lisa Gray, Daily Record ‘From the stunning opening chapter, I was hooked. House of Spines is an intriguing tale with a haunting, gothic quality that compels you to keep reading till the end' Howard Linskey ‘At first it seems like a poet's paradise, but something sinister lurks within the corridors … a MUST READ' Daily Express ‘The story twists and feints, pulling us along with it at every turn, the edginess of its central character making every development even more unsettling … a chilling read, best savoured late on a dark night' Herald Scotland ‘You might not want to be alone when you read this spine-chilling gothic thriller ... As he explores its endless corridors his grip on reality seems to be evaporating in this terrifying exploration of lust and betrayal' Sunday Post ‘Prepare to have your marrow well and truly chilled by this deeply creepy Scottish horror … A complex and multi-layered story – perfect for a wintry night' Sunday Mirror ‘Beautifully crafted and colourfully descriptive … keeps the reader gripped by an uneasy presence, a chill, literally, down the spine' Undiscovered Scotland ‘Malone is a massive talent … get on board now so you can brag you were reading his books long before the rest of the world' Luca Veste

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile

Author: Bernard Waber

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 1965

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13: 9780395137208

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Lyle is perfectly happy living with the Primms on East 88th St. until irritable Mr. Grumps next door changes all that.

The House on East 88th Street
The House on East 88th Street

Author: Bernard Waber

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2022-09-20

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13: 9780395199701

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"It is called the Elemental Control. And it is failing. The elements are mere ghosts of their full forces. And, as it fails Delphi, I start to die. I need you to save me, the future of your home, and a very powerful boy." Earth, fire, water, wind. Four elements that make up everything Delphi knows to be normal. All her life, she has been a servant to a mysterious man named The Master - until The Master comes to her island home and asks her to undertake a dangerous task in the far-off, elemental lands. Delphi is alone in places with strange secrets and rules, with the fate of her world on her shoulders, and although she makes many friends she also attracts more dangerous attention... Leo has never known home - and he isn't exactly a normal boy. When he is kidnapped by a nameless man who tries to force Leo to reveal his powers, he finds he has nobody he can turn to - except a girl in his dreams called Delphi... Can Delphi find the Elemental Stones to bring the Control back into balance? Will she get to Leo's prison in time? And, when faced with the ultimate challenge, can Delphi find the inner strength to save everything she loves? A story about courage, friendship and finding where you belong. About the Author Esme Carpenter started writing at the age of twelve and since then has never looked back. Despite completing a five-book series by fifteen, she couldn't stop, resulting in a backlog of fantasy and science-fiction novels decaying on her harddrive, awaiting liberation (and possibly a good edit). An avid reader all her life, Esme always enjoyed stories. Her love of both writing and reading led her to the University of East Anglia to study English Literature and Creative Writing; she graduated summer 2011. Esme enjoys, amongst other things, comic books, video games and music, the latter of which gives her the best inspiration and is often used to drive her stories. At present she is writing a graphic novel. Against the Elements is her debut novel, written when she was fifteen and edited at the tender age of twenty-one. Esme lives in York, England, with a ridiculous amount of nerdy memorabilia.

Homes and Haunts
Homes and Haunts

Author: Alison Booth

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-09-09

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0191076880

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This is the first full-length study of literary tourism in North America as well as Britain, and a unique exploration of popular response to writers, literary house museums, and the landscapes or "countries " associated with their lives and works. An interdisciplinary study ranging from 1820-1940, Homes and Haunts: Touring Writers' Shrines and Countries unites museum and tourism studies, book history, narrative theory, theories of gender, space, and things, and other approaches to depict and interpret the haunting experiences of exhibited houses and the curious history of topo-biographical writing about famous authors. In illustrated chapters that blend Victorian and recent first-person encounters that range from literary shrines and plaques to guidebooks, memoirs, portraits, and monuments, Alison Booth discusses pilgrims such as William and Mary Howitt, Anna Maria and Samuel Hall, and Elbert Hubbard, and magnetic hosts and guests as Washington Irving, Wordsworth, Martineau, Longfellow, Hawthorne, James, and Dickens. Virginia Woolf's feminist response to homes and haunts shapes a chapter on Mary Russell Mitford, Gaskell, and the Brontës, and another on the Carlyles' house and Monk's House. Booth rediscovers collections of personalities, haunted shrines, and imaginative re-enactments that have been submerged by a century of academic literary criticism.

Things You Should Know
Things You Should Know

Author: A. M. Homes

Publisher: Granta Books

Published: 2004-02-12

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9781862076945

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A collection of charismatic and humorous stories about the bizarreness of the every-day.