The definitive chronicle of the origins of French avant-garde literature and art, Roger Shattuck's classic portrays the cultural bohemia of turn-of-the-century Paris who carried the arts into a period of renewal and accomplishment and laid the groundwork for Dadaism and Surrealism. Shattuck focuses on the careers of Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, and Guillaume Apollinaire, using the quartet as window into the era as he exploring a culture whose influence is at the very foundation of modern art.
The definitive chronicle of the origins of French avant-garde literature and art, Roger Shattuck's classic portrays the cultural bohemia of turn-of-the-century Paris who carried the arts into a period of renewal and accomplishment and laid the groundwork for Dadaism and Surrealism. Shattuck focuses on the careers of Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, and Guillaume Apollinaire, using the quartet as window into the era as he exploring a culture whose influence is at the very foundation of modern art.
"When factory worker Dan Dong accidentally discovers how easy it is to infiltrate state- and corporate-sponsored banquets by posing as a journalist, he quickly becomes addicted to the insane luxury of these meals. For the first time, he tastes crab-claw tips, exotic fungi, and a dish made from thousands of pigeon tongues arranged in the shape of a chrysanthemum. But when Dan's disguise enables him to become privy to a deep-rooted scandal, his conscience compels him to cross the line between subterfuge and reality by actually writing an expose. With the help of the witty, jaded reporter Happy Gao, Dan embarks on a journey that will take him from the highest rungs of society to its most sordid depths." "Throughout the book, food - from the spicy, oily fare Dan orders for a high-class prostitute at a restaurant called Pink Chamber, to the humble noodle dishes prepared by his long-suffering wife, Little Plum - is present on almost every page, described so vividly that you can almost smell and taste it. But by the final page of The Banquet Bug, it has become clear that the perils of consumption run parallel to its pleasures."--BOOK JACKET.
Set against the backdrop of the Enlightenment, the delectable decadence of Versailles, and the French Revolution, The Last Banquet is an intimate epic that tells the story of one man’s quest to know the world through its many and marvelous flavors. Jean-Marie d’Aumout will try anything once, with consequences that are at times mouthwatering and at others fascinatingly macabre (Three Snake Bouillabaisse anyone? Or perhaps some pickled Wolf's Heart?). When he is not obsessively searching for a new taste d’Aumout is a fast friend, a loving husband, a doting father, and an imaginative lover. He befriends Ben Franklin, corresponds with the Marquis de Sade and Voltaire, becomes a favorite at Versailles, thwarts a peasant uprising, improves upon traditional French methods of contraception, plays an instrumental role in the Corsican War of Independence, and constructs France’s finest menagerie. But d’Aumout’s every adventurous turn is decided by his at times dark obsession to know all the world’s flavors before that world changes irreversibly. As gripping as Patrick Suskind’s Perfume, as gloriously ambitious as Daniel Kehlman’s Measuring the World, and as prize-worthy as Andrew Miller’s Pure, The Last Banquet is a hugely appealing novel about food and flavor, about the Age of Reason and the ages of man, and our obsessions and about how, if we manage to survive them, they can bequeath us wisdom and consolation in old age.
This long-awaited biography of Alfred Jarry reconstructs a life both "ubuesque" and pataphysical. When Alfred Jarry died in 1907 at the age of thirty-four, he was a legendary figure in Paris—but this had more to do with his bohemian lifestyle and scandalous behavior than his literary achievements. A century later, Jarry is firmly established as one of the leading figures of the artistic avant-garde. Even so, most people today tend to think of Alfred Jarry only as the author of the play Ubu Roi, and of his life as a string of outlandish “ubuesque” anecdotes, often recounted with wild inaccuracy. In this first full-length critical biography of Jarry in English, Alastair Brotchie reconstructs the life of a man intent on inventing (and destroying) himself, not to mention his world, and the “philosophy” that defined their relation. Brotchie alternates chapters of biographical narrative with chapters that connect themes, obsessions, and undercurrents that relate to the life. The anecdotes remain, and are even augmented: Jarry's assumption of the “ubuesque,” his inversions of everyday behavior (such as eating backward, from cheese to soup), his exploits with gun and bicycle, and his herculean feats of drinking. But Brotchie distinguishes between Jarry's purposely playing the fool and deeper nonconformities that appear essential to his writing and his thought, both of which remain a vital subterranean influence to this day.
A Three-Year Banquet invites the entire worshipping assembly, lay and clergy, to understand and delight in the three-year lectionary. The study guide explains how the Revised Common Lectionary was developed and how the gospels, the first readings and the epistles are assigned. Further chapters describe many ways that the three readings affect the assembly's worship and the assembly itself. Like food at a banquet, the fare we enjoy in the lectionary nourishes us year after year. -- Publisher description
In such novels as The Poison Master, Empire of Bones, and Nine Layers of Sky, Liz Williams sparked readers' imaginations by creating worlds at once strange and familiar. Now this bold new writer brings her best short fiction together in one stunning collection. The stories featured in The Banquet of the Lords of Night have appeared in Asimov's, Interzone, Realms of Fantasy, and The Third Alternative, among others. The stories within the covers of The Banquet of the Lords of Night are varied in style and subject matter, but they are all powerfully written. From the breathtaking title story, "Banquet of the Lords of Night" about an Earth plunged into a world of darkness where light is against the law to the stunning "The Man from the Ministry" in which we learn the how far a mother will go where her family is concerned; Williams displays an astonishing breadth and variety of writing styles. Williams is equally at home writing galaxy-spanning science fiction like "Quantum Anthropology" as she is weaving a tale like "Adventures in the Ghost Trade" which incorporates demons, magic, the afterlife, and private detectives. "Williams's unique cross-genre voice is a reinvigorating one for SF, fantasy and horror." Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
For years Kazu has run her fashionable restaurant with a combination of charm and shrewdness. But when the she falls in love with one of her clients, an aristocratic retired politician, she renounces her business in order to become his wife. But it is not so easy to renounce her independent spirit, and eventually Kazu must choose between her marriage and the demands of her irrepressible vitality. After the Banquet is a magnificent portrait of political and domestic warfare.
