With this masterly and original work, Bellow: A Biography, National Book Award nominee James Atlas gives the first definitive account of the Nobel Prize–winning author’s turbulent personal and professional life, as it unfolded against the background of twentieth-century events—the Depression, World War II, the upheavals of the sixties—and amid all the complexities of the Jewish-immigrant experience in America, which generated a vibrant new literature. Drawing upon a vast body of original research, including Bellow’s extensive correspondence with Ralph Ellison, Delmore Schwartz, John Berryman, Robert Penn Warren, John Cheever, and many other luminaries of the twentieth-century literary community, Atlas weaves a rich and revealing portrait of one of the most talented and enigmatic figures in American intellectual history. Detailing Bellow’s volatile marriages and numerous tempestuous relation-ships with women, publishers, and friends, Bellow: A Biography is a magnificent chronicle of one of the premier writers in the English language, whose prize-winning works include Herzog, The Adventures of Augie March, and, most recently, Ravelstein.
The biographer—so often in the shadows, kibitzing, casting doubt, proving facts—comes to the stage in this funny, poignant, endearing tale of how writers’ lives get documented. James Atlas, the celebrated chronicler of Saul Bellow and Delmore Schwartz, takes us back to his own childhood in suburban Chicago, where he fell in love with literature and, early on, found in himself the impulse to study writers’ lives. We meet Richard Ellmann, the great biographer of James Joyce and Atlas’s professor during a transformative year at Oxford. We get to know Atlas’s first subject, the “self-doomed” poet Delmore Schwartz. And we are introduced to a bygone cast of intellectuals such as Edmund Wilson and Dwight Macdonald (the “tall pines,” as Mary McCarthy once called them, cut down now, according to Atlas, by the “merciless pruning of mortality”) and, of course, the elusive Bellow, “a metaphysician of the ordinary.” Atlas revisits the lives and works of the classical biographers, the Renaissance writers of what were then called “lives,” Samuel Johnson and the obsessive Boswell, and the Victorian masters Mrs. Gaskell and Thomas Carlyle. And in what amounts to a pocket history of his own literary generation, Atlas celebrates the biographers who hoped to glimpse an image of them—“as fleeting as a familiar face swallowed up in a crowd.” (With black-and-white illustrations throughout)
Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet is based on interviews, letters, and an extraordinary collection of unpublished papers that had never before been examined. Delmore Schwartz was only twenty-four in 1938 when his first book, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, was published. He received praise from T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams. For Tate, it was “the only genuine innovation we’ve had since Eliot and Pound.” A decade later, the short-story collection The World Is a Wedding was published; many critics characterized it as the definitive portrait of their generation. In this biography, the first about the man whom John Berryman called “the most underrated poet of the twentieth century,” James Atlas traces Schwartz’s history, from the arrival of his Romanian ancestors in New York, to his youth in Washington Heights, to his career at Harvard as a graduate student in philosophy, and onward to the flowering of his generation in the '40s, when he and the critics, poets, and novelists who were his friends made their reputations. Schwartz’s brilliant satires of his friends and acquaintances, his autobiographical stories, and his letters to his illustrious peers contribute to this vivid portrait of an era—and of that era’s most trenchant chronicler.
Part survival tale, part confessional, part meditation, part observation, James Atlas's funny and poignant memoir reveals the pleasures and pathos of the decades of our forties and fifties -- the time when we face, for better or worse, our limitations and discover who we are. Whether he is struggling with God or trying to find out if he believes in one, celebrating the books he's loved and regretting those he'll never read, or leafing through the snapshots in his family album and marveling at the passage of time, Atlas is always alert to the surprises of everyday life as he shows us how to flourish -- how to live.
Does it matter which books college students read? Indeed it does, contends the author. Atlas presents a trenchant assessment of America at its educational crossroads, and asserts that whatr in shaping Buyer's Choice
Filled with lavish illustrations, this book is a grand tour of the universe. Three ever widening domains are presented--the planets, the stars, and the large scale universe itself--each including the ones before it and extending outward. The tour starts close to home within the first domain, our own solar system. There is a tremendous variety here, from the sun scorched rocks of Mercury to the icy vastness of the Kuiper Belt beyond Pluto. We see the sun and planets born from the collapse of an interstellar dust cloud whose atoms were themselves created in long dead stars. Since many of these planets have been visited by space probes or landers, we are able to benefit from the incredible technology of exploration developed by NASA and its counterparts in other countries. The second domain is made up of the billions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. We walk in the steps of the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, who first established that the universe is made up of discrete galaxies, then go on to examine the fundamental constituents of those galaxies--the stars. We see stars not as eternal lights in the sky, but as objects born out of a desperate struggle between pressure and gravity. We trace the life cycle of our own sun, from its birth 4.5 billion years ago to its quiet end 6 billion years in the future. We see the galaxy not as a serene and placid place, but as a giant factory, where primordial material is taken up into stars, then returned to the galaxy enriched with the heavy elements necessary for life. Finally, we move to the ultimate domain--the large scale structure of the universe itself in which galaxies are the building blocks. We discover the most amazing fact, that the solid stuff of stars and planets on which we have been concentrating up to this point make up only a few percent of the mass in the universe, with the rest being composed of two mysterious entities called, respectively, dark matter and dark energy. We descend into deep caverns to see scientists trying to detect dark matter as it sweeps by the Earth, and we talk to theorists trying to solve the riddle of dark energy. This quest brings us to the frontier of knowledge, the edge of the unknown. To conclude, two ultimate questions remain: How did the universe begin? How will the universe end? We trace our theories back to the first fraction of a second of the life of the universe and listen to the speculations of cosmologists about how it might all have started.
An utterly irresistible first novel: The story of two sisters, the yearning to disappear into another country, and the powerful desire to return to the known world. Linno is a gifted artist, despite a childhood accident that has left her badly maimed, and Anju is one of Kerala’s most promising students. Both girls dream of coming to the United States, but it is Anju who wins a scholarship to a prestigious school in New York. She seizes it, even though it means lying and betraying her sister. When her lie is discovered, Anju disappears. Back in Kerala, Linno is undergoing a transformation of her own. But when she learns of Anju’s disappearance, Linno strikes out farther still, with a scheme to procure a visa so that she can come to America to look for her sister and save them both.
Of utility to demographers, public policy analysts, sociologists, political scientists, policymakers, and, of course, geographers, The Atlas of American Society maps out a comprehensive picture of an America rarely seen in such breadth.
In this follow-on to Space Atlas (QED, 2018) and Ocean Atlas (QED 2020), readers will be taken on a journey across the globe and onto the soccer field to learn about the world of soccer.
Slavery transformed Africa, Europe and the Americas and hugely-enhanced the well-being of the West but the subject of slavery can be hard to understand because of its huge geographic and chronological span. This book uses a unique atlas format to present the story of slavery, explaining its historical importance and making this complex story and its geographical setting easy to understand.
Here is an essential reference book which will be enthusiastically welcomed by all those interested in American higher education. This innovative approach to the presentation of educational information is a welcome change from the traditional portrayal of such data in the form of dry statistics, tables, and charts. The striking visual approach provides the reader with a clear, concise understanding of higher education in this country and furnishes a comprehensive overview of current trends. By seeing the data graphically portrayed, even a casual reader can develop a broad understanding of basic information in a relatively short period of time. From the masses of information that are regularly collected and compiled by the many agencies and associations concerned with higher education, the authors have carefully chosen the most important data and those that highlight significant and revealing patterns. Clearly showing the influence of the fifty separate and distinct systems that make up American higher education, The Atlas of American Higher Education presents dozens of maps on such topics as enrollment; students and faculty; cultural diversity; specialized institutions; two-year colleges; outcomes of higher education; student costs and student aid; and financing of higher education, as well as general background and summary chapters. It includes balanced coverage of both public and private, two- and four-year institutions. In addition to portraying educational data by state, the Atlas shows basic underlying demographic variables such as the distribution of population and ethnic groups, income, and urbanization. The Atlas of American Higher Education is an indispensable text for college and university administrators, students and faculty in master's and doctoral programs in the field of higher education, as well as anyone concerned with educational policy. Geographers, those interested in American studies, and other social scientists will find the Atlas useful in courses that deal with social, cultural, and demographic issues.
Global environmental change is one of the most pressing international issues of the next century. There is a need to monitor the Earth's vital signs, from atmospheric ozone to tropical deforestation to sea level change. Models used to predict global changes have not yet fully used global observational data sets. Satellite data sets will be vital in addressing global change issues, in determining natural variability and monitoring global and regional changes. This timely volume provides an illustration of the variety of satellite-derived global data sets now available, their uses, advantages and limitations, and the range of variation that has already been observed with these data. A team of distinguished contributors provide a highly illustrated and accessible account suitable for the general scientific reader.
From the earliest evidence of humankind in Palestine to the establishment of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, the ministry of Jesus, and the rise of the Christian Church, the richly illustrated HarperCollins Atlas of Bible History brings the Bible to life in all its geographical context. Detailed biblical references, timelines, and suggestions for further reading accompany each period of biblical history, conveying a tangible sense of the land, events, and people portrayed in the world's most famous book. With more than 100 full-color maps, timelines, and expert explanations, this superlative reference work will enable readers to more fully appreciate and understand the Bible and its stories. The HarperCollins Atlas of Bible History features: Over 100 full-color geographical and topographical maps The latest archaeological information, floor plans, city plans, illustrations, and artistic recreations of ancient life Charts, graphs, statistics, informative sidebars, and more Detailed biblical references Timelines that place each section of the Bible in its historical context Web site recommendations for further interactive study
Take a trip around the world, and see the sights from New York to Delhi, Rio de Janeiro to Sydney, Paris to Cape Town. All kids have to do to come along on this special voyage from way up north to down in Antarctica is open up the most unusual atlas ever, and pull the tabs. To their amazement, out of the skeleton outline of each continent will come a lively, well-marked, colorful map. As they journey from page to page, map to map, and place to place, children will learn lots of fun stuff about geography, culture, history, and nature. A big world map at the end completes the exciting tour.
A celebration of the most delightful, atmospheric and soul-reviving places on Earth and in the world of myth. Mount Sinai, the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio, the Forbidden City, and many more are captured in exquisite black-and-white and full-color photographs.
Of all the techniques used to treat non melanoma skin cancer, the highest cure rates belong to the Mohs surgical procedure. Critical to this technique is optimal preparation and interpretation of frozen sections. With more than 400 high resolution figures, the Atlas of Mohs and Frozen Section Cutaneous Pathology is the premier textbook on the topic, serving as a highly practical guide to microscopic analysis, diagnosis, and discrimination of common and problematic cutaneous neoplasms. Highlights of the Atlas include diagnosis of basic and routine dermatologic entities, diagnosis and distinction of rare and/or deadly neoplasms such as dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans and merkel cell carcinoma, a troubleshooting guide dealing with quality control of the frozen section technique, and discussion of new techniques including immunohistochemistry. Comprehensive and presented in full color, the Atlas of Mohs and Frozen Section Cutaneous Pathology is an indispensable reference for anyone involved with the Mohs procedure, including dermatologic surgeons, Mohs cutaneous surgeons, as well as pathologists and dermatopathologists who perform frozen section analysis of cutaneous specimens.
The Second Edition of Atlas of the Human Brain and Spinal Cord offers the essentials of neuroanatomy in a newly revised format. This atlas allows students to synthesize a three-dimensional concept of the major motor and sensory systems of the human brain and spinal cord by providing a photographic survey of the macroscopic and microscopic structure of the central nervous system. It is organized into 5 sections and covers material on gross anatomy, spinal cord, brain stem, coronal sections, axial sections, parasagittal sections, arteries and angiograms, neuroanatomical lesions, nuclear magnetic images of brain tumors, and more. In addition to the high quality plates that made the first edition a best-seller, the second edition now features A new section on Case Studies of Brain Tumors and Degenerative Diseases of the CNS, Vertebral and carotid digital subtraction angiography, New 2-color design, A mini-atlas of thick stained sections of the brain in the three orthogonal planes, and New angiograms, MRI brain scans, refined illustrations, and myelin-stained plates.
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