True Grit
True Grit

Author: Charles Portis

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2010-11-05

Total Pages: 127

ISBN-13: 1590206509

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

#1 New York Times bestseller “An epic and a legend” —Washington Post “Quite simply, an American masterpiece.” —Boston Globe “The dialogue in True Grit is exquisite.” —David Mamet “Charles Portis had a wonderful talent—original, quirky, exciting.” —Larry McMurtry Charles Portis has long been acclaimed as one of America’s most enduring and incomparable literary voices, and his novels have left an indelible mark on the American canon. True Grit, his most famous novel, was first published in 1968, and has garnered critical acclaim as well as enthusiastic praise from countless passionate fans for more than fifty years. This story of danger and adventure in the old west became the basis for two award-winning films, the first starring John Wayne, in his only Oscar-winning role, as Marshall Rooster Cogburn, and the widely praised remake by the Coen brothers, starring Jeff Bridges. True Grit tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen when the coward Tom Chaney shoots her father in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 cash. Filled with an unwavering urge to avenge her father’s blood, Mattie finds and, after some tenacious finagling, enlists one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available US Marshal, as her partner in pursuit, and they head off into Indian Territory after the killer. True Grit is essential reading. Not just a classic Western, but an undeniable classic of American literature as eccentric, cool, funny, and unflinching as Mattie Ross herself. For fans of either the John Wayne classic or the more recent Coen brothers’ movie, it’s a chance to relive the story of Mattie and Rooster and experience their story as it was originally told. For fans of taut, funny storytelling, it will be a joy to experience in its original form. This edition includes an afterword by bestselling author Donna Tartt (The Secret History and The Goldfinch) and a reading group guide.

Arkansas Politics and Government
Arkansas Politics and Government

Author: Diane D. Blair

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 520

ISBN-13: 0803204892

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Published a decade and a half after the late Diane D. Blair s influential book Arkansas Politics and Government, this freshly revised edition builds on her work, which highlighted both the decades of failure by Arkansas's government to live up to the state s motto of Regnat Populus ( The People Rule ) and the positive trends of democracy. Since the first edition, Arkansas has seen the two-term U.S. presidency of a native son, the retirement of players who defined the state s politics in the modern era, the further realignment of the state s electorate, the passage of the nation s most extreme legislative term limits, the complete overhaul of the state s court system, and the declaration that the state s public education system was unconstitutionally inadequate and inequitable. While maintaining the basic structure of Blair s original work with its focus on important historical patterns and the ways in which the past continues to shape the present, the second edition details the causes and consequences of recent changes in Arkansas and asks whether they are profound and permanent or merely transitory variations in symbol and style. Jay Barth argues that although Arkansas currently expresses a healthier representative democracy than throughout most of its history, its political and governmental entities are still sharply limited as effective instruments of the people.