Rhyming text tells of a sea serpent that played off the coast of Massachusetts the summer of 1817, but when adventure seekers came from miles around to study the serpent and aggressively hunt it down, the creature eluded capture and remains a mystery even today.
Looking to buy some medieval armour? In the mood for an orchestra of typewriters? Perhaps you’d like to sift through handcrafted cashmere scarves while chatting up Indiana Jones’ lovely co-star? Know where to find America’s oldest baseball diamond, New England’s smallest town, or Grover Cleveland’s impossibly-young (and spitting-image) grandson (think about it)? New England Notebook offers the answers to these questions and more in a blend of the region’s most singular and noteworthy nuggets of history, people, and culture. This is a collection of colorful facts, stories and anecdotes, plus a savvy selection of unusual eats, goods, services and events. Whether it’s finding a little-known museum of Titanic memorabilia, an underwater escape artist, or the smallest bar, both casual readers and dedicated lovers of all things New England will share a hearty—and humorous—sense of, “Who knew?” Written by a native New Englander and WCVB on-air reporter, New England Notebook goes beyond the merely curious, though it offers plenty of intriguing tidbits, unusual museums, fascinating characters, and many pieces of trivia and little-known facts.
In the eight regular journals and three miscellaneous notebooks of this volume is the record of fusions. This period of his life closes, as it opened, with 'acquiescence and optimism.'
François Truffaut (1932-1984) ranks among the greatest film directors and has had a worldwide impact on filmmaking as a screenwriter, producer, film critic, and founding member of the French New Wave. His most celebrated films include The 400 Blows, Shoot the Piano Player, Jules and Jim, Day for Night, and The Last Metro. A Truffaut Notebook is a lively and eclectic introduction to the life and work of this major cinematic figure. In entries as brief as a page, as well as in full-length essays, it examines topics such as Truffaut's mentors, the autobiographical nature of his films, his place in the film tradition, his film criticism, his reputation, his relationships with other directors, and the formal and thematic coherence of his body of work. Sam Solecki also argues for Truffaut's continuing appeal and relevance by examining his influence on filmmakers like Woody Allen, Noah Baumbach, Alexander Payne, Patrice Leconte, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and on writers such as Julian Barnes, Ann Beattie, and Salman Rushdie. Because the book returns regularly to the author's shifting responses to Truffaut's work over the last fifty years, it also offers an autobiographical meditation on his own lifelong fascination with film. Consisting of over eighty short entries and essays, as well as provocative lists, dreams, and quizzes, A Truffaut Notebook is an original and exciting text and a model of passionate engagement with cinema.
In 1817, as Gloucester, Massachusetts, was recovering from the War of 1812, something beneath the water was about to cause a stir in this New England coastal community. It was a misty August day when two women first sighted Gloucester's sea serpent, touching off a riptide of excitement among residents that reached a climax when Matt Gaffney fired a direct shot at the creature. Local historian Wayne Soini explores the depths of Gloucester harbor to reveal a treasure-trove of details behind this legendary mystery. Follow as he tracks Justice of the Peace Lonson Nash's careful investigation, the world's first scientific study of this marine animal, and judges the credibility of numerous reported sightings.
Meticulously edited and annotated, Tennessee Williams's notebooks follow his growth as a writer from his undergraduate days to the publication and production of his most famous plays, from his drug addiction and drunkenness to the heights of his literary accomplishments.
First published in 1948, this book may be described as Dame Edith Sitwell's personal notebook. It consists of essays on the subject of the general aspect of the plays-those great hymns to the principle and the glory of life, in which there are the same differences in nature, in matter, in light, in darkness, in movement, that we find in the universe, and in which the characters are so vast they seem each an element (Water, Hamlet; Air, Romeo and Juliet; Fire, King Lear) and which yet bear the stamp of our common humanity, made greater and more universal. There are long essays on King Lear, Macbeth, Othello and Hamlet. Dame Edith believes, with all humility, that she has discovered new sources of the inspiration of King Lear, throwing a new light on the whole play, and giving new meanings to the mad scenes, of an unsurpassable grandeur, depth, and terror. There are shorter essays also on other of the tragedies. The keynotes of many of the plays are examined (not all the plays are discussed), a phrase is studied and will be found to hold the whole meaning of the play. There are essays on many of the comedies, and long passages about the Fools and Clowns. Connecting levels are traced between the philosophies of the plays. There are, too, running commentaries on Shakespeare as that ' common-kissing Titan ', and, since the book is a personal notebook, the author makes copious quotations from the writings of Shakespearean scholars who have thrown light on the various aspects of which she treats, and from works on other subjects which also serve to illumine his mighty and many-sided genius. "Her reading is deep and personal; possibly nobody has ever read Shakespeare with an ear more sensitive to every sound and cadence." -Chicago Daily Tribune
In the third published volume of Canadian literary critic Frye's (1912-91) 77 holograph notebooks, the material is mostly from the 1970s, when he was writing the first of his books on the Bible, The Great Code. However, it begins with Notebook Three from the late 1940s in which he writes primarily on religious themes. It concludes with Notebook 23 from the middle 1980s, written between his first and second book on the Bible; and one from the 1960s devoted largely to his reading of Dante's Purgatorio and the first ten cantos of the Paradiso. Altogether the volume contains 11 notebooks, three sets of typed notes, and a transcription of 24 lectures on The Mythological Framework of Western Culture in 1981-82. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
F.W. Harvey was one of a generation whose lives were splintered by the First World War, and one of that group of war poets for whom the war changed everything. He joined the 5th Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment only days after war was declared, and was among the first Territorials to land in France. As a Lance-Corporal he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for 'conspicuous gallantry' and was commissioned shortly afterwards. He survived the Somme offensive but in August 1916 was captured by the Germans while reconnoitring alone behind enemy lines. He spent the rest of the war in p-o-w camps. But Harvey was more than just a tough soldier. A contemporary of Sassoon, Brooke and Thomas – and with Ivor Gurney his closest friend – he wanted nothing more when 'at rest' than an interval of quiet in which to set down in verse his longing for his Gloucestershire homeland, his outrage at the waste of war, his joy in comradeship, his humour and his unflinching faith. This biography contains many of the poems, including the world-famous 'Ducks', and is illustrated with a wealth of contemporary photographs