Must Read Rediscovering American Bestsellers

Author : Sarah Churchwell,Thomas Ruys Smith
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2012-08-02
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781441195135

Get Book

Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers by Sarah Churchwell,Thomas Ruys Smith Pdf

What is it about certain books that makes them bestsellers? Why do some of these books remain popular for centuries, and others fade gently into obscurity? And why is it that when scholars do turn their attention to bestsellers, they seem only to be interested in the same handful of blockbusters, when so many books that were once immensely popular remain under-examined? Addressing those and other equally pressing questions about popular literature, Must Read is the first scholarly collection to offer both a survey of the evolution of American bestsellers as well as critical readings of some of the key texts that have shaped the American imagination since the nation's founding. Focusing on a mix of enduring and forgotten bestsellers, the essays in this collection consider 18th and 19th century works, like Charlotte Temple or Ben-Hur, that were once considered epochal but are now virtually ignored; 20th century favorites such as The Sheik and Peyton Place; and 21st century blockbusters including the novels of Nicholas Sparks, The Kite Runner, and The Da Vinci Code.

Author : Sarah Churchwell,Thomas Ruys Smith
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 386 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2012-08-02
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781441162168

Get Book

Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers by Sarah Churchwell,Thomas Ruys Smith Pdf

A unique survey and interpretive history, spanning 200 years, of the American bestseller.

Author : Robert McParland
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 335 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2018-12-15
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781538110003

Get Book

Bestseller by Robert McParland Pdf

Whether curled up on a sofa with a good mystery, lounging by the pool with a steamy romance, or brooding over a classic novel, Americans love to read. Despite the distractions of modern living, nothing quite satisfies many individuals more than a really good book. And regardless of how one accesses that book—through a tablet, a smart phone, or a good, old-fashioned hardcover—those choices have been tallied for decades. In Bestseller: A Century of America’s Favorite Books, Robert McParland looks at the reading tastes of a nation—from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. Through extensive research, McParland provides context for the literature that appealed to the masses, from low-brow potboilers like Forever Amber to Pulitzer-Prize winners such as To Kill a Mockingbird. Decade by decade, McParland discusses the books that resonated with the American public and shows how current events and popular culture shaped the reading habits of millions. Profiles of authors with frequent appearances—from Ernest Hemingway to Danielle Steel—are included, along with standout titles that readers return to year after year. A snapshot of America and its love of reading through the decades, this volume informs and entertains while also providing a handy reference of the country’s most popular books. For those wanting to learn more about the history of American culture through its reading habits, Bestseller: A Century of America’s Favorite Books is a must-read.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 610 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2016
Category : Literature
ISBN : IND:30000152410050

Get Book

The Arizona Quarterly by Anonim Pdf

Author : James W. Hall
Publisher : Random House
Page : 337 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2012-04-10
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780679604969

Get Book

Hit Lit by James W. Hall Pdf

DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF WHAT MAKES A MEGA-BESTSELLER IN THIS ENTERTAINING, REVELATORY GUIDE What do Michael Corleone, Jack Ryan, and Scout Finch have in common? Creative writing professor and thriller writer James W. Hall knows. Now, in this entertaining, revelatory book, he reveals how bestsellers work, using twelve twentieth-century blockbusters as case studies—including The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Jaws. From tempting glimpses inside secret societies, such as submariners in The Hunt for Red October, and Opus Dei in The Da Vinci Code, to vivid representations of the American Dream and its opposite—the American Nightmare—in novels like The Firm and The Dead Zone, Hall identifies the common features of mega-bestsellers. Including fascinating and little-known facts about some of the most beloved books of the last century, Hit Lit is a must-read for fiction lovers and aspiring writers alike, and makes us think anew about why we love the books we love.

Author : Mark R. Levin
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 183 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2017-06-27
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781476773476

Get Book

Rediscovering Americanism by Mark R. Levin Pdf

From #1 New York Times bestselling author and radio host Mark R. Levin comes a searing plea for a return to America’s most sacred values. In Rediscovering Americanism, Mark R. Levin revisits the founders’ warnings about the perils of overreach by the federal government and concludes that the men who created our country would be outraged and disappointed to see where we've ended up. Levin returns to the impassioned question he's explored in each of his bestselling books: How do we save our exceptional country? Because our values are in such a precarious state, he argues that a restoration to the essential truths on which our country was founded has never been more urgent. Understanding these principles, in Levin’s words, can “serve as the antidote to tyrannical regimes and governments.” Rediscovering Americanism is not an exercise in nostalgia, but an appeal to his fellow citizens to reverse course. This essential book brings Levin’s celebrated, sophisticated analysis to the troubling question of America's future, and reminds us what we must restore for the sake of our children and our children's children.

Author : Bill Bryson
Publisher : Anchor Canada
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2012-05-15
Category : Travel
ISBN : 9780385674546

Get Book

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson Pdf

God only knows what possessed Bill Bryson, a reluctant adventurer if ever there was one, to undertake a gruelling hike along the world's longest continuous footpath—The Appalachian Trail. The 2,000-plus-mile trail winds through 14 states, stretching along the east coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine. It snakes through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in North America, as well as through some of its most poverty-stricken and primitive backwoods areas. With his offbeat sensibility, his eye for the absurd, and his laugh-out-loud sense of humour, Bryson recounts his confrontations with nature at its most uncompromising over his five-month journey. An instant classic, riotously funny, A Walk in the Woods will add a whole new audience to the legions of Bill Bryson fans.

Author : Thomas Ruys Smith
Publisher : LSU Press
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2007-06-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780807143087

Get Book

River of Dreams by Thomas Ruys Smith Pdf

Even in the decades before Mark Twain enthralled the world with his evocative representations of the Mississippi, the river played an essential role in American culture and consciousness. Throughout the antebellum era, the Mississippi acted as a powerful symbol of America's conception of itself -- and the world's conception of America. As Twain understood, "The Mississippi is well worth reading about." Thomas Ruys Smith's River of Dreams is an examination of the Mississippi's role in the antebellum imagination, exploring its cultural position in literature, art, thought, and national life. Presidents, politicians, authors, poets, painters, and international celebrities of every variety experienced the Mississippi in its Golden Age. They left an extraordinary collection of representations of the river in their wake, images that evolved as America itself changed. From Thomas Jefferson's vision for the Mississippi to Andrew Jackson and the rowdy river culture of the early nineteenth century, Smith charts the Mississippi's shifting importance in the making of the nation. He examines the accounts of European travelers, including Frances Trollope, Charles Dickens, and William Makepeace Thackeray, whose views of the river were heavily influenced by the world of the steamboat and plantation slavery. Smith discusses the growing importance of visual representations of the Mississippi as the antebellum period progressed, exploring the ways in which views of the river, particularly giant moving panoramas that toured the world, echoed notions of manifest destiny and the westward movement. He evokes the river in the late antebellum years as a place of crime and mystery, especially in popular writing, and most notably in Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man. An epilogue discusses the Mississippi during the Civil War, when possession of the river became vital, symbolically as well as militarily. The epilogue also provides an introduction to Mark Twain, a product of the antebellum river world who was to resurrect its imaginative potential for a post-war nation and produce an iconic Mississippi that still flows through a wide and fertile floodplain in American literature. From empire building in the Louisiana Purchase to the trauma of the Civil War, the Mississippi's dominant symbolic meanings tracked the essential forces operating within the nation. As Smith shows in this groundbreaking work, the story of the imagined Mississippi River is the story of antebellum America itself.

Author : Phyllis Tickle
Publisher : Crossroad
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 1995
Category : Religion
ISBN : UVA:X002626457

Get Book

Re-discovering the Sacred by Phyllis Tickle Pdf

Explores the renewed American quest for spirituality from historical, sociological, and literary perspectives.

Author : Mark Adams
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 429 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2011-06-30
Category : Travel
ISBN : 9781101535400

Get Book

Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams Pdf

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING TRAVEL MEMOIR What happens when an unadventurous adventure writer tries to re-create the original expedition to Machu Picchu? In 1911, Hiram Bingham III climbed into the Andes Mountains of Peru and “discovered” Machu Picchu. While history has recast Bingham as a villain who stole both priceless artifacts and credit for finding the great archeological site, Mark Adams set out to retrace the explorer’s perilous path in search of the truth—except he’d written about adventure far more than he’d actually lived it. In fact, he’d never even slept in a tent. Turn Right at Machu Picchu is Adams’ fascinating and funny account of his journey through some of the world’s most majestic, historic, and remote landscapes guided only by a hard-as-nails Australian survivalist and one nagging question: Just what was Machu Picchu?

Author : Swami Vivekananda
Publisher : Advaita Ashrama (A Publication House of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math)
Page : 60 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 1963
Category : Religion
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

Get Book

Thoughts on the Gita by Swami Vivekananda Pdf

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most important scriptures of the Hindus. The very fact that this scripture has been commented upon by innumerable saints only highlights its great importance. This being the case, readers would find it deeply interesting to know what Swami Vivekananda had to say regarding it. In the pages of this booklet are found those wonderful ideas and authoritative statements regarding Gita by one who was aptly fit to bring out the hidden significance and essence of this great scripture. Published by Advaita Ashrama, a publication house of Ramakrishna Math, Belur Math, India.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 1746 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Booksellers and bookselling
ISBN : MINN:31951P002269508

Get Book

American Bookseller by Anonim Pdf

Author : Thomas Ruys Smith
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2011-08-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9781847251930

Get Book

Southern Queen by Thomas Ruys Smith Pdf

An accessible and entertaining look at this crucible period in the life of one of America's most distinctive cities.

Author : Mrs. Rowson
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 152 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 1825
Category : Fiction
ISBN : PRNC:32101064071242

Get Book

Charlotte Temple by Mrs. Rowson Pdf

Author : Richard Martini
Publisher : PREMIER DIGITAL PUBLISHING
Page : 371 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2012-01-11
Category : Self-Help
ISBN : 9781624670527

Get Book

Flipside by Richard Martini Pdf

What happens after we die? _x000D_ _x000D_ Author and award winning filmmaker Richard Martini explores startling new evidence for life after death, via the "life between lives," where we reportedly return to find our loved ones, soul mates and spiritual teachers. Based on the evidence of thousands of people who claim that under deep hypnosis, they saw and experienced the same basic things about the Afterlife, the book documents interviews with hypnotherapists around the world trained in the method pioneered by Dr. Michael Newton, as well as examining actual between life sessions. The author agrees to go on the same journey himself, with startling and candid results, learning we are fully conscious between our various incarnations, and return to connect with loved ones and spiritual soul mates, and together choose how and when and with whom we'll reincarnate. Martini examines how "Karmic law" is trumped by "Free will," with souls choosing difficult lives in order to learn from their spiritually; no matter how difficult, strange or complex a life choice appears to be, it was made in advance, consciously, with the help of loved ones, soul mates and wise elders. Extensively researched, breathtaking in scope, "Flipside" takes the reader into new territory, boldly going where no author has gone before to tie up the various disciplines of past life regression. near death experiences, and between life exploration. In the words of author Gary Schwartz, Phd, once you've read "Flipside" "you'll never see the world in the same way again."_x000D_ _x000D_ Praise for Flipside:_x000D_ _x000D_ "Richard has written a terrific book. Insightful, funny, provocative and deep; I highly recommend it!" - Robert Thurman, author of Why the Dalai Lama Matters_x000D_ _x000D_ “Inspiring, well written and entertaining. The kind of book where once you have read it, you will no longer be able to see the world in the same way again.” - Gary E. Schwartz, author of The Sacred Promise_x000D_ _x000D_ "Everyone should have a Richard Martini in their life." - Charles Grodin, author of If I Only Knew Then... What I Learned From Mistakes