Chambers emerged from the communist Party, but did not surrender the conviction, by which his very bones had been virtually irradiated, that apocalypse menaced. Hugh Kenner
When two friends—a sock monkey and a plush toy dog—get into an argument during playtime, Monkey gets his feelings hurt and proclaims, “You are not my friend!” But when he takes his ball to find someone new to play with, he quickly learns that maybe he hasn’t been a very good friend, either.Bestselling author/illustrator Daniel Kirk uses bold and humorous illustrations to convey the important message that sharing and other acts of friendship are two-way streets. Praise for You Are Not My Friend, But I Miss You "Kirk’s skillfully paced mix of vignettes, close-ups and long shots guide readers smoothly through this emotional odyssey." --Kirkus Reviews "His frequent use of bold, large-scale drawing captures Monkey’s equally outsize temperament, while the emphatic, minimal text is subtly poignant and supremely performable." --Publishers Weekly
"A decade in the writing, the haunting story of a son's quest to understand the mystery of his father's death--a universal memoir about the secrets families keep and the role they play in making us who we are. Michael Hainey had just turned six when his uncle knocked on his family's back door one morning with the tragic news: Bob Hainey, Michael's father, was found alone near his car on Chicago's North Side, dead, of an apparent heart attack. Thirty-five years old, a young assistant copy desk chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob was a bright and shining star in the competitive, hard-living world of newspapers, one that involved booze-soaked nights that bled into dawn. And then suddenly he was gone, leaving behind a young widow, two sons, a fractured family--and questions surrounding the mysterious nature of his death that would obsess Michael throughout adolescence and long into adulthood. Finally, roughly his father's age when he died, and a seasoned reporter himself, Michael set out to learn what happened that night. Died after visiting friends, the obituaries said. But the details beyond that were inconsistent. What friends? Where? At the heart of his quest is Michael's all-too-silent, opaque mother, a woman of great courage and tenacity--and a steely determination not to look back. Prodding and cajoling his relatives, and working through a network of his father's buddies who abide by an honor code of silence and secrecy, Michael sees beyond the long-held myths and ultimately reconciles the father he'd imagined with the one he comes to know--and in the journey discovers new truths about his mother. A stirring portrait of a family and its legacy of secrets, After visiting friends is the story of a son who goes in search of the truth and finds not only his father, but a rare window into a world of men and newspapers and fierce loyalties that no longer exists"--Provided by publisher.
Why have so many figures throughout American history proclaimed their life stories when confronted by great political problems? The Claims of Experience provides a new theory for what makes autobiography political throughout the history of the United States and today. Across five chapters, Nolan Bennett examines the democratic challenges that encouraged a diverse cast of figures to bear their stories: Benjamin Franklin amid the revolutionary era, Frederick Douglass in the antebellum and abolitionist movements, Henry Adams in the Gilded Age and its anxieties of industrial change, Emma Goldman among the first Red Scare and state opposition to radical speech, and Whittaker Chambers amid the second Red Scare that initiated the anticommunist turn of modern conservatism. These historical figures made what Bennett calls a "claim of experience." By proclaiming their life stories, these authors took back authority over their experiences from prevailing political powers, and called to new community among their audiences. Their claims sought to restore to readers the power to remake and make meaning of their own lives. Whereas political theorists and activists have often seen autobiography to be too individualist or a mere documentary source of evidence, this theory reveals the democratic power that life narratives have offered those on the margins and in the mainstream. If they are successful, claims of experience summon new popular authority to surpass what their authors see as the injustices of prevailing American institutions and identity. Bennett shows through historical study and theorization how this renewed appreciation for the politics of life writing elevates these authors' distinct democratic visions while drawing common themes across them. This book offers both a method for understanding the politics of life narrative and a call to anticipate claims of experience as they appear today.
The Friend gives a fresh, simple understanding of happiness as a state of Being, and unhappiness as a reflection of our distance from our own Being. In modern language, it shows how we have come to be separated from our own being. The Friend is both guide book and a Journey book. It teaches skills and understanding for navigating through the personality self to find the core states of Being. In the journey we find challenges, tasks, learning, and the precious inner treasures that open to our willingness to be with our self.
A New York Times Bestselling series “Hilarious and charming. The most lovable duo since Frog and Toad.” —NYT-bestselling creator of the Dog Man and Captain Underpants series, Dav Pilkey Narwhal and Jelly . . . and Otty?! Exuberant Narwhal and skeptical Jelly test the waters of adding a new friend to their pod when they meet Otty the super-adventurous otter in the fourth book of this blockbuster early graphic novel series! Dive into three new stories about the joy of adventure and the power of friendship! In the first story, Otty the otter makes her debut splash; while Narwhal greets her with immediate enthusiasm, Jelly's not so sure about her...mostly because he worries she'll take his place as Narwhal's best friend. Readers will easily see why Narwhal's so excited to meet Otty, a boisterous explorer who even has an aunt who's a real live sea captain! But readers will also relate to Jelly's uneasiness seeing his best friend making a new pal. Jelly tries to work out his jealousy in story two, and in story three, the new trio say "Ahoy, adventure!" and discover they all have more in common than they thought . . . including a love of waffles! Jelly also takes over the "Super Waffle and Strawberry Sidekick" comic providing a sidekick's-eye-view of defeating the dreaded dEVILed egg!
A delightful history of Americans' obsession with advice -- from Poor Richard to Dr. Spock to Miss Manners Americans, for all our talk of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, obsessively seek advice on matters large and small. Perhaps precisely because we believe in bettering ourselves and our circumstances in life, we ask for guidance constantly. And this has been true since our nation's earliest days: from the colonial era on, there have always been people eager to step up and offer advice, some of it lousy, some of it thoughtful, but all of it read and debated by generations of Americans. Jessica Weisberg takes readers on a tour of the advice-givers who have made their names, and sometimes their fortunes, by telling Americans what to do. You probably don't want to follow all the advice they proffered. Eating graham crackers will not make you a better person, and wearing blue to work won't guarantee a promotion. But for all that has changed in American life, it's a comfort to know that our hang-ups, fears, and hopes have not. We've always loved seeking advice -- so long as it's anonymous, and as long as it's clear that we're not asking for ourselves; we're just asking for a friend.
When she doesn't receive the marriage proposal she'd long been expecting on her 41st birthday, Linda follows the guidance of a psychic and heads to Europe, seeking her soul mate.
Many writers in early modern England drew on the rhetorical tradition to explore affective experience. In The Imperfect Friend, Wendy Olmsted examines a broad range of Renaissance and Reformation sources, all of which aim to cultivate 'emotional intelligence' through rhetorical means, with a view to understanding how emotion functions in these texts. In the works of Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), John Milton (1608-1674), and many others, characters are depicted conversing with one another about their emotions. While counselors appeal to objective reasons for feeling a certain way, their efforts to shape emotion often encounter resistance. This volume demonstrates how, in Renaissance and Reformation literature, failures of persuasion arise from conflicts among competing rhetorical frameworks among characters. Multiple frameworks, Olmsted argues, produce tensions and, consequently, an interiorized conflicted self. By situating emotional discourse within distinct historical and socio-cultural perspectives, The Imperfect Friend sheds new light on how the writings of Sidney, Milton, and others grappled with problems of personal identity. From their innovations, the study concludes, friendship emerges as a favourite site of counseling the afflicted and perturbed.