Showing posts with label letters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label letters. Show all posts
May 4, 2016
Oct 1, 2014
Letters of Note
Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider AudienceSummary: This collection of 125 letters offers a never-before-seen glimpse of the events and people of history--the brightest and the best, the most notorious, and the endearingly everyday. Letters are not ordered chronologically or thematically, but are artfully arranged for a discovery-rich reading experience. Each entry includes a transcript of the letter; a short contextual introduction; and, in 100 cases, a facsimile of the letter itself
Library Journal Reviews
Based on the blog of the same name, this collection of letters is so handsome that it looks like a coffee-table book, but it's more than that. In it, Queen Elizabeth II sends a note to President Dwight Eisenhower reflecting on Mamie and Ike's visit to Balmoral Castle: she appends her recipe for scones. The chairman of the Whitehall Vigilance Committee receives a package with a note from Jack the Ripper accompanied by half a human kidney, pickled in wine: "I fried and ate it was very nise." Gandhi appeals to Hitler as the only one who can avert the impending war. Bank robber Clyde Barrow tells Henry Ford he only drives Fords. Francis Crick alerts his son about DNA. A wife writes to her samurai husband on the eve of battle (he died in the fighting, she committed suicide) and an ex-slave addresses his former master. This treasure trove of fascinating material includes more than 125 letters from both the famous and the unknown dating as far back as 1340 BCE, many reproduced in facsimile. VERDICT A beautiful collection that should appeal to everyone. Start reading it and you're lost.
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Sep 1, 2013
The day the crayons quit - Drew Daywalt
Summary: When Duncan arrives at school one morning, he finds a stack of letters, one from each of his crayons, complaining about how he uses them.
Booklist Reviews
Duncan's crayons are on strike. One morning he opens his desk looking for them and, in their place, finds a pack of letters detailing their grievances, one crayon at a time. Red is tired. Beige is bored. Black is misunderstood. Peach is naked! The conceit is an enticing one, and although the crayons' complaints are not entirely unique (a preponderance centers around some variation of overuse), the artist's indelible characterization contributes significant charm. Indeed, Jeffers' ability to communicate emotion in simple gestures, even on a skinny cylinder of wax, elevates crayon drawing to remarkable heights. First-class bookmaking, with clean design, ample trim size, and substantial paper stock, adds to the quality feel. A final spread sees all things right, as Duncan fills a page with bright, delightful imagery, addressing each of the crayons' issues and forcing them into colorful cooperation. Kids who already attribute feelings to their playthings will never look at crayons the same way again. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.
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May 1, 2013
Portable Jack London - Jack London
Portable Jack London - London, Jack
Summary: Alfred Kazin has aptly remarked that "the greatest story Jack London ever wrote was the story he lived." Newsboy, factory "work beast," gang member, hobo, sailor, Klondike argonaut, socialist crusader, war correspondent, utopian farmer, and world-famous adventurer: London is the closest thing America has had to a literary folk hero. His writing itself is concerned with nothing less than the largest questions and the grandest themes: What does it mean to be a human being in the natural world? What debts do human beings owe each other - and to all their fellow creatures? This collection places London, at last, securely within the American literary pantheon. It includes the complete novel The Call of the Wild; such famous stories as "Love of Life," "To Build a Fire," and "All Gold Canyon"; journalism, political writings, literary criticism, and selected letters.
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Nov 1, 2012
Words in air - Elizabeth Bishop
Summary: A profile of the intimate relationship between the two twentieth-century poet friends draws on their thirty-year correspondence to offer insight into how they inspired each other, the ways in which they viewed their private and surrounding worlds, and their experiences within the literary community. - (Baker & Taylor)
Choice Reviews
The complete correspondence between Bishop (1911-79) and Lowell (1917-77), who were friends as well as fellow poets, will be warmly welcomed by scholars of both poets. Though most of their letters are already available in separate volumes--Robert Giroux's edition of Bishop's letters (One Art: Letters, 1994) and Saskia Hamilton's edition of Lowell's (The Letters of Robert Lowell, CH, Jan'06, 43-2675)--this collection adds new letters and creates a rich, compelling narrative. Bishop and Lowell met in 1947 and were immediately drawn to each other, both personally and professionally. Their correspondence covers a period of some 30 years and contains lively discussions about the poetry of their contemporaries, politics (both American and Brazilian), and their own writing. Indeed, they influenced each other's work, aspired to each other's talents, and wrote poems for each other. They also wrote more personally, of their love affairs and their respective illnesses: Bishop suffered throughout her life from severe asthma, depression, and alcoholism; Lowell, from what would now be called bipolar disorder. Their understanding of and affection for each other is clear throughout their correspondence, which ended only on Lowell's death. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. Copyright 2009 American Library Association.
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Apr 1, 2012
Galileo's daughter - Dava Sobel
Summary: Presents a biography of the scientist through the surviving letters of his illegitimate daughter Maria Celeste, who wrote him from the Florence convent where she lived from the age of thirteen - (Baker & Taylor)
Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ As often is the case with religious landmarks in history--in this instance, Galileo's prostration before the Inquisition--a deeper searching reveals more textures than simple science-versus-religion symbolism. But it takes a talented storyteller to bring them forth, and Sobel meets our high expectations with this work, the legacy of her account of the inventor of the seagoing chronometer in Longitude (1995). Sobel is aided by a unique resource: more than 100 letters to Galileo from his eldest daughter that have never before been published in translation. They appear here largely verbatim and have been skillfully integrated into the contextual events of early 1600s Italy--no mean narrative feat, considering that this daughter, who took the veil and the name Maria Celeste, never in her short adult life ventured beyond her order's walls. The letters' somewhat trepidant salutation, "Most Illustrious and Beloved Lord Father," belies what was apparently a profoundly fond relationship on a filial level (a conclusion supported by the surprise Sobel springs at the end), but it was respectful on an intellectual one: there are allusions to Maria Celeste copying over Galileo's Dialogue concerning the Two Chief World Systems, the work that attracted the ire of the inquisitors. Their lives are set in motion against a background that includes family finances, Florentine and papal politics, the bubonic plague, and the Copernican revolution, which Galileo was championing as discreetly as was safe to do. Succinct in describing where, and where not, Galileo was heading in correct scientific direction (he didn't understand tides, for example), Sobel connects the tempests of his world to the cares and anxieties of Maria Celeste's. "A woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me," eulogized the father when she suddenly died amidst his persecutions, an aptly allusive summing up of the subject of Sobel's singularly affecting story. ((Reviewed August 1999)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews
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The archivist - Martha Cooley
Summary: A battle of wills between Matt, a careful, orderly archivist for a private university, and Roberta, a determined young poet, over a collection of T. S. Eliot's letters, sealed by bequest until 2019, sparks an unusual friendship and reawakens painful memories of the past. A first novel. 30,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)
Booklist Reviews
The articulate yet restrained archivist who narrates this exceptional first novel confides, "Books never cease to astonish me," a sentiment that could easily be aroused by Cooley's resolute and somber tale. It takes great vision and verve to work with the heavily freighted materials she handles so adroitly: the terrible legacy of the Holocaust; questions of faith, conversion, and sanity; and the life and poetry of T. S. Eliot. Using Eliot's tragic first marriage, religious convictions, and abortive relationship with his confidante, Emily Hale, as a template, Cooley explores and extends his traumas through the prisms of her highly cerebral characters. Now in his sixties, Matthias takes quiet pleasure in his guardianship of a university archive that contains letters between Eliot and Hale. This invaluable correspondence is off-limits until 2019, but Roberta, an attractive poet, is determined to gain access to it and draws Matthias into a tense tango of negotiations that unfreezes painful memories of his poet-wife's suicide. Much of Cooley's unusual novel flows like a psychological thriller, and even its slow passages are moodily compelling. ((Reviewed March 15, 1998)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews
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Apr 1, 2011
El regalo del tiempo/The gift of time - Jorge Ramos
El regalo del tiempo/The gift of time - Ramos, Jorge
Summary: In a series of letters to his two children, Paola and Nicolás, author and television personality Jorge Ramos discusses love, death, religion, sex, family, the immigrant experience, success, and other topics.
Criticas Reviews
Ramos, coanchor of Univision News since 1986, is one the most influential, respected, and popular Latinos in the United States and Latin America. He has won seven Emmys for excellence in journalism and received countless other honors. His face and name are ubiquitous in the Latino world—his nightly news casts reach millions of Latinos, his weekly column is carried in more than 35 U.S. and Latin American newspapers, his daily commentary is heard by millions on Univision Radio, and his seven books have all been best sellers. Written as a series of 15 letters to his children, this is his most personally revealing book and will undoubtedly endear him even more to his many fans and readers. While readers will enjoy the personal details he shares, such as his fear of flying and the surgical history of his imperfect nose and inability to smell, it is the expression of his values and beliefs that will resonate with readers. In his letters, he shares important principles and perspectives that many Latinos would surely want to pass on to their children, such as spending time with family and building loving relationships, finding and dedicating yourself wholeheartedly to your passion, and appreciating different perspectives and values while honoring your own. Ramos has written an intimate and timeless book that will appeal to parents and children of all ages. Highly recommended for all public libraries, academic libraries, and bookstores.—Yolanda J. Cuesta, Cuesta MultiCultural Consulting, Sacramento, CA Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
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