Perhaps her best-loved, certainly her most well-known book, Pride and Prejudice is the classic romantic novel. Romance, misunderstandings, finding Mr Right and finding out who's Mr Wrong — Pride and Prejudice is as relevant today as it has ever been. It's the enchanting and enduring story of Lizzy Bennet, one of literature's most engaging heroines, and proud Mr Darcy, of true love, families, villains and heroes and, of course, pride and prejudice.
Nabokov - Borges - Ellison - Bellow - Heller - Purdy - Hawkes - Barth - Plath - Updike - Roth - Mailer - Kesey.
Nietzsche said that he never travelled anywhere without a volume of Emerson's essays in his pocket, while Mathew Arnold described Emerson as 'the greatest prose writer of the century'. It is a remarkable writer who could at once appeal to a man considered a pillar of Victorian society, and to a man dedicated to bringing down such pillars. In his own time Emerson was considered a profoundly radical thinker, but after his death he was increasingly seen as a bland Boston Brahmin, contentedly ripening with the new England melons, benignly meditating on such viperous notions as the Over–soul.He is now appreciated as one of the truly seminal American writers, refusing all orthodoxies, complacencies and fixities—both a truly celebratory and deeply adversarial thinker. A unique paperback edition, with introduction and chronology of Emerson's life and times.
When Elinor and Marianne Dashwood and their mother are unfairly swindled out of their family inheritance they are forced to leave the family home in Norwood and move to Barton Cottage in Devonshire. The two sisters are soon accepted into their new society. Marianne falls for the roguish charms of John Willoughby while Elinor still mourns the loss of Edward Ferrars whom she had left behind. Despite their very different personalities, both sisters experience great sorrows in their affairs, Marianne demonstrably wretched and Elinor allowing no-one to see her private heartache. Yet it is the qualities common to them both - discernment, constancy and integrity in the face of the fecklessness of others - that allow them entry into a new life.
It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.
Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach... Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing and debating his mysterious character. For Gatsby - young, handsome, fabulously rich - always seems alone in the crowd, watching and waiting, though no one knows what for. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life he is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled. And soon this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel. (back cover)
Tanner guides us through Austen's novels from optimistic early works to the darker Persuasion and fragmentary Sanditon--a journey that takes her from acceptance of a society maintained by landed property, family, money, and strict propriety through an insistence on the need for authentication of these values to a final skepticism and even rejection.
In 1918 Ernest Hemingway went to war, to the 'war to end all wars'. He volunteered for ambulance service in Italy, was wounded and twice decorated. Out of his experiences came A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway's description of war is unforgettable. He recreates the fear, the comradeship, the courage of his young American volunteer and the men and women he meets in Italy with total conviction. But A Farewell to Arms is not only a novel of war. In it Hemingway has also created a love story of immense drama and uncompromising passion.
In the hope of making a wealthy marriage, Eugenia, the Baroness M©ơnster, and her younger brother, the artist Felix, descend on the Wentworths, in Boston. Installed in a nearby house, they become close friends with the younger Wentworths, Gertrude, Charlotte and Clifford. Eugenia's wit, guile and sophistication, and Felix's debonair vivacity form an uneasy alliance with the Puritan morality and the frugal, domestic virtues of the Americans. A rich and delicately balanced commedy of manners, The Europeans weighs the values of the established order against thos of New England society, but makes no simple judgements, only subtle contrasts and beautifully observed comparisons.
Here is a novel, glamorous, ironical, compassionate – a marvelous fusion into unity of the curious incongruities of the life of the period – which reveals a hero like no other – one who could live at no other time and in no other place. But he will live as a character, we surmise, as long as the memory of any reader lasts. It is the story of this Jay Gatsby who came so mysteriously to West Egg, of his sumptuous entertainments, and of his love for Daisy Buchanan – a story that ranges from pure lyrical beauty to sheer brutal realism, and is infused with a sense of the strangeness of human circumstance in a heedless universe. It is a magical, living book, blended of irony, romance, and mysticism.
Dr Tanner investigates American literature with regards to wonder and cultivated naivety.
Male, female, deft, fraudulent, constantly shifting: which of the masquerade of passengers on the Mississippi steamboat Fidele is the confidence man? The central motif of Melville's last and most modern novel can be seen as a symbol of American cultural history.
Male, female, deft, fraudulent, constantly shifting: which of the masquerade of passengers on the Mississippi steamboat Fidele is the confidence man? The central motif of Melville's last and most modern novel can be seen as a symbol of American cultural history.
To eat in Hong Kong is endlessly fascinating and exciting. A mere dot on the map of China, and home to seven million migrants, Hong Kong boasts a food scene that is breathtakingly rich and varied. Tony Tan explores this vibrant city through 80 exquisite dishes, from the cutting-edge contemporary to the traditional, from both the high and low of Hong Kong cuisine - with recipes from the city's iconic hotels, its hawker stalls, and even a legendary dumpling house on the outskirts of Kowloon. Tony weaves his recipes with stories that trace Hong Kong's Chinese roots, explore its deep colonial connections and tantalise us with glimpses of today's ultra-modern city and most delicious eating spots. Author BiographyBorn in Malaysia and fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese, Tony Tan trained at La Varenne, France, and Leiths School of Food and Wine in the UK. He has presented master classes and been guest chef at hotels and restaurants throughout Australia, China, Malaysia, Vietnam, New Zealand and Spain, including the Ritz in Madrid and Alambique, one of Spain's top cooking schools. He was an international judge at Hong Kong's premier Chinese cuisine challenge, The Best of the Best Culinary Competition. He writes for magazines and newspapers in Australia and internationally and comments regularly in the media on food and wine. - Hong Kong Food City By Tony Tan (Hardback)
