A musty bar in off-season Cannon Beach, Oregon, provides the setting for an unsuspecting Frenchman's introduction to the many ways life can go wrong for the unlucky in America. He listens as the barflies nightly recount their tales of woe--betrayal, broken families, financial ruin. Though they seem at first to tolerate the newcomer's presence and sympathy, a tide of violence is rising, one he perceives only dimly until it is too late to escape. Made doubly powerful by her poetic fascination with the violence and volatility of the American landscape itself, Montalbetti's novel is a thrilling study of the senseless cruelty disappointed men are capable of.
A collection of nine short stories reflecting on various characters' relationships with "The River." Ranging in time from the early 20th century to the present, Wind Water Waves chronicles how a varied cast of characters' lives are tied to "The River." The collection begins with "The Last of the Old Timers," the story of four individuals pulling a boat in the fall and recollecting their lives together. Four of the stories, told from different points of view, revolve around a group of young adults grappling with the death of a friend while also realizing that their season of youthful play in a summer wonderland is ending as they are forced to limit their time at the river and test their relationships with each other. "With the River and In the Wind" recalls a harrowing trip across the winter ice when a horse-drawn sleigh crashes through, killing the horses and forcing young Ben into an abandoned cabin until the storm passes. Later, he must confront death again when he recovers the body of a close family friend. "The Midnight Lady" recounts the attempt of two brothers to rob a riverside bank by boat in a fog. "Mom Makes River a Garden" reflects a memory that has blossomed with time. The book ends with "River Murmurs," a glance back to an event in the lives of the characters from the first story.
This is a story of tides and coastlines, winds and waves, islands and beaches. It is also a retelling of indigenous creativity, agency, and resistance in the face of unprecedented globalization and violence. Waves Across the South shifts the narrative of the Age of Revolutions and the origins of the British Empire; it foregrounds a vast southern zone that ranges from the Arabian Sea and southwest Indian Ocean across to the Bay of Bengal, and onward to the South Pacific and the Tasman Sea. As the empires of the Dutch, French, and especially the British reached across these regions, they faced a surge of revolutionary sentiment. Long-standing venerable Eurasian empires, established patterns of trade and commerce, and indigenous practice also served as a context for this transformative era. In addition to bringing long-ignored people and events to the fore, Sujit Sivasundaram opens the door to new and necessary conversations about environmental history, the consequences of historical violence, the legacies of empire, the extraction of resources, and the indigenous futures that Western imperialism cut short. The result is nothing less than a bold new way of understanding our global past, one that also helps us think afresh about our shared future.
Join Ursula K. Le Guin as she explores a broad array of subjects, ranging from Tolstoy, Twain, and Tolkien to women's shoes, beauty, and family life. With her customary wit, intelligence, and literary craftsmanship, she offers a diverse and highly engaging set of readings. The Wave in the Mind includes some of Le Guin's finest literary criticism, rare autobiographical writings, performance art pieces, and, most centrally, her reflections on the arts of writing and reading.
This book offers a new approach to imagination which brings its emotional, social, cultural, contextual and existential characteristics to the fore. Fantasy and imagination are understood as the human capacity to distance oneself from the here?and?now situation in order to return to it with new possibilities. To do this we use social?cultural means (e.g. language, stories, art, images, etc.) to conceive of imaginary scenarios, some of which may become real. Imagination is involved in every situation of our lives, though to different degrees. Sometimes this process can lead to concrete products (e.g., artistic works) that can be picked up and used by others for the purposes of their imagining. Imagination is not seen here as an isolated cognitive faculty but as the means by which people anticipate and constructively move towards an indeterminate future. It is in this process of living forward with the help of imagination that novelty appears and social change becomes possible. This book offers a conceptual history of imagination, an array of theoretical approaches, imagination’s use in psychologist’s thinking and a number of new research areas. Its aim is to offer a re?enchantment of the concept of imagination and the discipline of psychology more generally.