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Woody Guthrie: Songs and Art * Words and Wisdom (American Music Masters Ser.)
by Nora Guthrie Robert Santelli"You can listen to his songs and learn how to live." —Bob Dylan, on Woody Guthrie The timely, passionate, and humanely political work of America's greatest folk singer and songwriter is presented through his own words and art—curated by Woody's daughter—in this essential self-portrait, including never-before-published lyrics and personal writing, and testimony from contemporary writers and musicians on his powerful relevance today. Winner of the Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Book Award for Outstanding Pop Music Publication Named one of the Best Music Books of 2021 by The Current, Minnesota Public RadioWoody Guthrie and his passionate social politics are as crucial today as they have ever been. A powerful voice for justice, and the author of more than 3,000 songs (including "This Land is Your Land"), he was also a poet, painter, illustrator, novelist, journal keeper, and profuse letter writer. Curated by his daughter Nora and award-winning music historian Robert Santelli, this fresh, intimate, and beautifully designed book thematically reveals Woody's story through his own personal writings, lyrics, and artwork, urgently bringing his voice to life. Featuring never-before-published lyrics to some of his greatest songs, personal diary entries, doodles, quips and jokes, and piercing insights on his politics and justice, this is an undeniable and important celebration of Woody's vibrant life's work. Created to be enjoyed by all—those interested in folk music or those interested in Woody's thoughts on Life in all its aspects, from Politics and Spirituality to Love and Family.ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL SONGWRITERS IN AMERICAN MUSIC HISTORY: Woody Guthrie has had a profound impact on American musicians, writers, politicians (and the everyman who found solace and kinship in Guthrie's writings and political beliefs), who have been shaped by his music and activism—namely the great founding father of songwriting himself, Bob Dylan, for whom he was a mentor, as powerfully depicted in the biopic A Complete Unknown starring Timothée Chalamet as Dylan and Scoot McNairy as Guthrie. Others who have named Guthrie as a major influence include Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, John Mellencamp, Billy Bragg, Joe Strummer, and Jerry Garcia, to name just a few. RARE ARCHIVAL MATERIAL: This is Woody's life told primarily in his own words, with never-before-published handwritten lyrics, artwork, journals, and much more. WORDS OF WISDOM RELEVANT TODAY: Woody Guthrie's lyrics and writings carry pointed relevance to our world today—he wrote powerfully about economic inequality, immigration reform, fascism, war, corruption from capitalism gone wild, patriotism, and environmentalism—not to mention spirituality of all kinds, love, and family. EXCLUSIVE CONTRIBUTORS: Includes new writing about Woody and his music by Chuck D., Ani DiFranco, Douglas Brinkley, Jeff Daniels, Arlo Guthrie, and Rosanne Cash.Perfect for: Music and Americana lovers Musicians and artists Political activists and historians Fans of Dylan Goes Electric! by Elijah Wald
Woody Guthrie: Writing America's Songs (Routledge Historical Americans)
by Ronald D. CohenWoody Guthrie is the most famous and influential folk music composer and performer in the history of the United States. His most popular song, "This Land is Your Land" has become the country's unofficial national anthem, known to every school child since the 1960s. His influence exceeded the realm of American music, reaching American politics. Guthrie’s music became the soundtrack to the Great Depression, and iconic of the Dust Bowl migrants. Guthrie and his music came to represent those disenfranchised people who remained committed to making better lives for themselves through the promise of the American Dream. Here, in a short, accessible biography, bolstered with primary documents, including letters, autobiographical excerpts, and reflections by Pete Seeger, Cohen introduces Guthrie’s life and music influence to students of American history and culture.
Woody, Cisco, and Me: Seamen Three in the Merchant Marine
by Jim LonghiIn his 1997 memoir, Jim Longhi, who passed away on November 22, 2006, gives the reader a first-hand account of Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston during those crucial years with anecdotes that no other living person could tell; his action-packed account of their ship's dangerous journeys through mine-infested waters, his memories of their ships being torpedoed, his description of their shore leaves throughout North Africa, Italy, Scotland, England and France, his hilarious "on-board" stories of Woody as the ship's dishwasher, menu artist, totem builder, and impromptu entertainer for the troops. Here we have yet another side of Woody, described as only Jimmy could. Jimmy's more personal observations of Woody as a "bunk-mate" and friend are perhaps even more revealing. He describes one incident where Woody saved his life after a torpedo hit their ship. He also tells us of the day after Woody's four year-old daughter Cathy died in a house fire and Woody's response. The memories go on and on... His writing is so eloquent and descriptive one can't help but think... "what a great movie this would make!" Jim Longhi, has been a prizefighter, ladies' stocking salesman, merchant seaman, lawyer and politician as well as a playwright. During World War II he and Woody, shipped out in the Merchant Marine. Guthrie taught him to sing, play the guitar, and "to be brave." They entertained troops under fire and were torpedoed twice off Italy and Normandy. After the war, Longhi became a lawyer, representing Brooklyn's rank-and-file longshoremen against the gangsters. With three longshoremen murdered, Longhi became the spokesman for the movement. People from all walks of life came to help, Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan among others. Longhi urged them to make the movie "On the Waterfront" for which Longhi conceived the original idea. Thereafter, Longhi wrote his own play about the waterfront called "Two Fingers of Pride," and gave Steve McQueen his first job. Longhi's second play, "Climb the Greased Pole," was produced in London's Mermaid Theater, starring Sir Bernard Miles. "The Lincoln Mask," which was performed this year off Broadway. His latest play "The Lantern," a play about Lincoln, was just finished.
Woody: The Biography
by David EvanierIn this first biography of Woody Allen in over a decade, David Evanier discusses key movies, plays and prose as well as Allen's personal life. Evanier tackles the themes that Allen has spent a lifetime sorting through in art: morality, sexuality, Judaism, the eternal struggle of head and heart. Woody will be the definitive word on a major American talent as he begins his ninth decade, and his sixth decade of making movies.
Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History's Most Iconic Extinct Creatures
by Ben MezrichScience fiction becomes reality in this Jurassic Park-like story of the genetic resurrection of an extinct species—the woolly mammoth—by the bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and The 37th Parallel.“With his knack for turning narrative nonfiction into stories worthy of the best thriller fiction” (Omnivoracious), Ben Mezrich takes us on an exhilarating true adventure story from the icy terrain of Siberia to the cutting-edge genetic labs of Harvard University. A group of young scientists, under the guidance of Dr. George Church, the most brilliant geneticist of our time, works to make fantasy reality by sequencing the DNA of a frozen woolly mammoth harvested from above the Arctic circle, and splicing elements of that sequence into the DNA of a modern elephant. Will they be able to turn the hybrid cells into a functional embryo and bring the extinct creatures to life in our modern world? Along with Church and his team of Harvard scientists, a world-famous conservationist and a genius Russian scientist plan to turn a tract of the Siberian tundra into Pleistocene Park, populating the permafrost with ancient herbivores as a hedge against an environmental ticking time bomb. More than a story of genetics, this is a thriller illuminating the race against global warming, the incredible power of modern technology, the brave fossil hunters who battle polar bears and extreme weather conditions, and the ethical quandary of cloning extinct animals. Can we right the wrongs of our ancestors who hunted the woolly mammoth to extinction—and at what cost?
Word Monkey
by Christopher Fowler'A delight . . . a glorious, witty and life-affirming ragbag of autobiography, cultural commentary and hard-won wisdom.' ANDREW TAYLOR, author of The Shadows of London'Perceptive, wise and illuminating . . . an unmissable farewell.' Barry Forshaw, FINANCIAL TIMES'The most hilarious, life-affirming book you’ll read this year.' SAGA magazine'Wit and wisdom that make every page turn . . . what a fine talent the world has lost.' STARBURSTThis is the memoir Christopher Fowler always wanted to write about 'writing'.It's the story of how a young bookworm growing up in a house where there was nothing to read but knitting pamphlets and motorcycle manuals became a writer - a 'word monkey' - and pursued a sort of career in popular fiction. And it's a book full of brilliant insights into the pleasures and pitfalls of his profession, dos and don'ts for would-be writers, and astute observations on favourite (and not-so-favourite) novelists.But woven into this hugely entertaining and inspiring reflection on a literary life is an altogether darker thread. In Spring 2020, just as the world went into lockdown, Chris was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And yet there is nothing of the misery memoir about Word Monkey. Past and present intermingle as, in prose as light as air, he relates with wry humour and remarkable honesty what he knows will be the final chapter in his story.Deeply moving, insightful and surprisingly funny, this is Christopher Fowler's life-affirming account of coming to terms with his own mortality.'A remarkable book by a remarkable writer: amazingly entertaining and informative and also, for obvious reasons, one of the most moving.' SIMON MASON, author of the DI Wilkins Mysteries'Wonderful . . . there is no bitterness here, but a hearty celebration of how art defines a life, with dark humour on the right occasions and the deliberate aim to leave a positive message . . . his enthusiasm is infectious and sobering when you are aware that he was dying as he wrote these pages.' Maxim Jacubowski, CRIME TIME
Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Radio, and Freedom
by Sonja D WilliamsPosthumously inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2007, Richard Durham creatively chronicled and brought to life the significant events of his times. Durham's trademark narrative style engaged listeners with fascinating characters, compelling details, and sharp images of pivotal moments in American and African American history and culture. In Word Warrior , award-winning radio producer Sonja D. Williams draws on archives and hard-to-access family records, as well as interviews with family and colleagues like Studs Terkel and Toni Morrison, to illuminate Durham's astounding career. Durham paved the way for black journalists as a dramatist and a star investigative reporter and editor for the pioneering black newspapers the Chicago Defender and Muhammed Speaks . Talented and versatile, he also created the acclaimed radio series Destination Freedom and Here Comes Tomorrow and wrote for popular radio fare like The Lone Ranger . Incredibly, his energies extended still further--to community and labor organizing, advising Chicago mayoral hopeful Harold Washington, and mentoring generations of activists. Incisive and in-depth, Word Warrior tells the story of a tireless champion of African American freedom, equality, and justice during an epoch that forever changed a nation.
Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries
by Kory StamperDo you have strong feelings about the word “irregardless”? Have you ever tried to define the word “is”? Brimming with intelligence and personality, this vastly entertaining account of how dictionaries are made is a must-read for word mavens. Many of us take dictionaries for granted, and few may realize that the process of writing dictionaries is, in fact, as lively and dynamic as language itself. With sharp wit and irreverence, Kory Stamper cracks open the complex, obsessive world of lexicography, from the agonizing decisions about what to define and how to do it, to the knotty questions of usage in an ever-changing language. She explains why small words are the most difficult to define, how it can take nine months to define a single word, and how our biases about language and pronunciation can have tremendous social influence. And along the way, she reveals little-known surprises—for example, the fact that “OMG” was first used in a letter to Winston Churchill in 1917. Word by Word brings to life the hallowed halls (and highly idiosyncratic cubicles) of Merriam-Webster, a startlingly rich world inhabited by quirky and erudite individuals who quietly shape the way we communicate. Certain to be a delight for all lovers of words, Stamper’s debut will make you laugh as much as it makes you appreciate the wonderful complexities and eccentricities of the English language.
Word for Word: A Translator's Memoir of Literature, Politics, and Survival in Soviet Russia
by Lilianna LunginaA remarkable memoir of living in the Soviet Union and working as a literary translator. In the early twentieth century, Lilianna Lungina was a Russian Jew born to privilege, spending her childhood in Germany, France, and Palestine. But when she was thirteen, her parents moved to the USSR—where Lungina became witness to many of the era&’s greatest upheavals. Exiled during World War II, dragged to KGB headquarters to report on her friends, and subjected to her new country&’s ruthless, systematic anti-Semitism, Lungina nonetheless carved out a career as a translator, introducing hundreds of thousands of Soviet readers to Knut Hamsun, August Strindberg, and, most famously, Astrid Lindgren. In the process, she found herself at the very center of Soviet cultural life, meeting and befriending Pasternak, Brodsky, Solzhenitsyn, and many other major literary figures of the era. Her extraordinary memoir—at once heartfelt and unsentimental—is an unparalleled tribute to a lost world.
Words Without Borders: The World Through the Eyes of Writers
by Andre Dubus III Alane Salierno Mason Dedi Felman Samantha SchneeFeaturing the work of more than 28 writers from upwards of 20 countries, Words without Borders: The World through the Eyes of Writers transports us to the frontiers of the new literature for the twenty-first century. In these pages, some of the most accomplished writers in world literature--among them Edwidge Danticat, Ha Jin, Cynthia Ozick, Javier Marias, and Nobel laureates Wole Soyinka, Günter Grass, Czeslaw Milosz, Wislawa Szymborska, and Naguib Mahfouz--have stepped forward to introduce us to dazzling literary talents virtually unknown to readers of English. Most of their work--short stories, poems, essays, and excerpts from novels--appears here in English for the first time. The Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman introduces us to a story of extraordinary poise and spiritual intelligence by the Argentinian writer Juan Forn. The Romanian writer Norman Manea shares with us the sexy, sinister, and thrillingly avant garde fiction of his homeland's leading female novelist. The Indian writer Amit Chaudhuri spotlights the Bengali writer Parashuram, whose hilarious comedy of manners imagines what might have happened if Britain had been colonized by Bengal. And Roberto Calasso writes admiringly of his fellow Italian Giorgio Manganelli, whose piece celebrates the Indian city of Madurai. Every piece here--be it from the Americas, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, or the Caribbean--is a discovery, a colorful thread in a global weave of literary exchange. Edited by Samantha Schnee, Alane Salierno Mason, and Dedi Felman.
Words Without Music: A Memoir
by Philip GlassThe long-awaited memoir by "the most prolific and popular of all contemporary composers" (New York Times). A world-renowned composer of symphonies, operas, and film scores, Philip Glass has, almost single-handedly, crafted the dominant sound of late-twentieth-century classical music. Yet here in Words Without Music, he creates an entirely new and unexpected voice, that of a born storyteller and an acutely insightful chronicler, whose behind-the-scenes recollections allow readers to experience those moments of creative fusion when life so magically merged with art. "If you go to New York City to study music, you'll end up like your uncle Henry," Glass's mother warned her incautious and curious nineteen-year-old son. It was the early summer of 1956, and Ida Glass was concerned that her precocious Philip, already a graduate of the University of Chicago, would end up an itinerant musician, playing in vaudeville houses and dance halls all over the country, just like his cigar-smoking, bantamweight uncle. One could hardly blame Mrs. Glass for worrying that her teenage son would end up as a musical vagabond after initially failing to get into Juilliard. Yet, the transformation of a young man from budding musical prodigy to world-renowned composer is the story of this commanding memoir. From his childhood in post-World War II Baltimore to his student days in Chicago, at Juilliard, and his first journey to Paris, where he studied under the formidable Nadia Boulanger, Glass movingly recalls his early mentors, while reconstructing the places that helped shape his artistic consciousness. From a life-changing trip to India, where he met with gurus and first learned of Gandhi's Salt March, to the gritty streets of New York in the 1970s, where the composer returned, working day jobs as a furniture mover, cabbie, and an unlicensed plumber, Glass leads the life of a Parisian bohemian artist, only now transported to late-twentieth-century America. Yet even after Glass's talent was first widely recognized with the sensational premiere of Einstein on the Beach in 1976, even after he stopped renewing his hack license and gained international recognition for operatic works like Satyagraha, Orphée, and Akhnaten, the son of a Baltimore record store owner never abandoned his earliest universal ideals throughout his memorable collaborations with Allen Ginsberg, Ravi Shankar, Robert Wilson, Doris Lessing, Martin Scorsese, and many others, all of the highest artistic order. Few major composers are celebrated as writers, but Philip Glass, in this loving and slyly humorous autobiography, breaks across genres and re-creates, here in words, the thrill that results from artistic creation. Words Without Music ultimately affirms the power of music to change the world.
Words and Worlds: From Autobiography to Zippers
by Alison LuriePoignant remembrances and sharp observations from the “most able and witty” Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Foreign Affairs (The New York Times). This engaging new collection of essays from the New York Times–bestselling novelist gathers together her reflections on the writing life; fond recollections of inspiring friends; and perceptive, playful commentary on preoccupations ranging from children’s literature to fashion and feminism. Citing her husband’s comment to her that “Nobody asked you to write a novel,” Lurie goes on to eloquently explain why there was never another choice for her. She looks back on attending Radcliffe in the 1940s—an era of wartime rations and a wall of sexism where it was understood that Harvard was only for the men. From offering a gleeful glimpse into Jonathan Miller’s production of Hamlet to memorializing mentors and intimate friends such as poet James Merrill, illustrator Edward Gorey, and New York Times Book Review coeditor Barbara Epstein, Lurie celebrates the creative artists who encouraged and inspired her. A lifelong devotee of children’s literature, she suggests saying no to Narnia, revisits the phenomenon of Harry Potter, and tells the truth about the ultimate good bad boy, Pinocchio. Returning to a favorite subject, fashion, Lurie explores the symbolic meaning of aprons, enthuses on how the zipper made dressing and undressing faster—and sexier—and tells how, feeling abandoned by Vogue at age sixty, she finally found herself freed from fashion’s restrictions on women. Always spirited no matter the subject, Lurie ultimately conveys a joie de vivre that comes from a lifetime of never abandoning her “childish impulse to play with words, to reimagine the world.”
Words for My Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur
by Dean Van NguyenFrom Pitchfork and Guardian contributor Dean Van Nguyen comes a revelatory history of Tupac beyond his musical legend, as a radical son of the Black Panther Party whose political legacy still resonates today.Before his murder at age twenty-five, Tupac Shakur rose to staggering artistic heights as the preeminent storyteller of the 1990s, building, in the process, one of the most iconic public personas of the last half century. He recorded no fewer than ten platinum albums, starred in major films, and became an activist and political hero known the world over. In this cultural history, journalist Van Nguyen reckons with Tupac&’s coming of age, fame, and cultural capital, and how the political machinations that shaped him as a boy have since buoyed his legacy as a revolutionary following the George Floyd uprisings. Words for My Comrades engages—crucially—with the influence of Tupac&’s mother, Afeni, whose role in the Black Panther Party and dedication to dismantling American imperialism and combating police brutality informed Tupac&’s art. Tupac&’s childhood as a son of the Panthers, coupled with the influence of his stepfather&’s Marxist beliefs, informed his own riveting code of ethics that helped audiences grapple with America&’s inherent injustices.Using oral histories from conversations with the people who directly witnessed Tupac&’s life and career, many of whom were interviewed for the first time here—from Panther elder Aaron Dixon, to music video director Stephen Ashley Blake, to friends and contemporaries of Tupac&’s mother—Van Nguyen demonstrates how Tupac became one of the most enduring musical legends in hip-hop history, and how intimately his name is threaded with the legacy of Black Panther politics.Van Nguyen reveals how Tupac and Afeni each championed the disenfranchised in distinct ways, and how their mother-son bond charts a narrative of the last fifty years of revolutionary Black American politics. Words for My Comrades is the story of how the energy of the Black political movement was subsumed by culture, and how America produced two of its most iconic, enduring revolutionaries.
Words for My Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur
by Dean Van NguyenBefore his murder at twenty-five, Tupac Shakur rose to staggering artistic heights as the pre-eminent storyteller of the 90s, building, in the process, one of the most iconic public personas of the last half century. He recorded several platinum-selling albums, starred in major films and became an activist and political hero known the world over.In this cultural history and brilliantly researched biography, Dean Van Nguyen reckons with Tupac's coming of age, fame and influence and how the political machinations that shaped him as a boy have since buoyed his legacy as a revolutionary following the George Floyd uprising. Words for My Comrades crucially engages with the influence of Tupac's mother, Afeni, whose role in the Black Panther Party, with its dedication to dismantling American imperialism and police brutality, informed Tupac's art. Tupac's childhood as a son of the Panthers, coupled with the influence of his militant stepfather Mutulu Shakur, became his own riveting code of ethics that helped listeners reckon with America's inherent injustices.Drawing upon conversations with the people who bore witness - from Panther veterans and other committed Marxist revolutionaries of 1970s America, to good friends and close collaborators of the rapper himself - Van Nguyen demonstrates how Tupac became one of the most enduring musical legends in hip-hop history and how intimately his name is threaded with the legacy of Black Panther politics. Words for My Comrades is the story of how the energy of the Black political movement was subsumed by culture and how America produced, in Tupac and Afeni, two of its most iconic, enduring revolutionaries.
Words for My Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur
by Dean Van NguyenBefore his murder at twenty-five, Tupac Shakur rose to staggering artistic heights as the pre-eminent storyteller of the 90s, building, in the process, one of the most iconic public personas of the last half century. He recorded several platinum-selling albums, starred in major films and became an activist and political hero known the world over.In this cultural history and brilliantly researched biography, Dean Van Nguyen reckons with Tupac's coming of age, fame and influence and how the political machinations that shaped him as a boy have since buoyed his legacy as a revolutionary following the George Floyd uprising. Words for My Comrades crucially engages with the influence of Tupac's mother, Afeni, whose role in the Black Panther Party, with its dedication to dismantling American imperialism and police brutality, informed Tupac's art. Tupac's childhood as a son of the Panthers, coupled with the influence of his militant stepfather Mutulu Shakur, became his own riveting code of ethics that helped listeners reckon with America's inherent injustices.Drawing upon conversations with the people who bore witness - from Panther veterans and other committed Marxist revolutionaries of 1970s America, to good friends and close collaborators of the rapper himself - Van Nguyen demonstrates how Tupac became one of the most enduring musical legends in hip-hop history and how intimately his name is threaded with the legacy of Black Panther politics. Words for My Comrades is the story of how the energy of the Black political movement was subsumed by culture and how America produced, in Tupac and Afeni, two of its most iconic, enduring revolutionaries.
Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell
by Elizabeth Bishop Robert LowellRobert Lowell once remarked in a letter to Elizabeth Bishop that "you ha[ve] always been my favorite poet and favorite friend." The feeling was mutual. Bishop said that conversation with Lowell left her feeling "picked up again to the proper table-land of poetry," and she once begged him, "Please never stop writing me letters—they always manage to make me feel like my higher self (I've been re-reading Emerson) for several days." Neither ever stopped writing letters, from their first meeting in 1947 when both were young, newly launched poets until Lowell's death in 1977. Presented in Words in Air is the complete correspondence between Bishop and Lowell. The substantial, revealing—and often very funny—interchange that they produced stands as a remarkable collective achievement, notable for its sustained conversational brilliance of style, its wealth of literary history, its incisive snapshots and portraits of people and places, and its delicious literary gossip, as well as for the window it opens into the unfolding human and artistic drama of two of America's most beloved and influential poets.
Words in a French Life
by Kristin EspinasseBased on the popular blog (french-word-a-day.com) and newsletter with thousands of subscribers -- a heart-winning collection from an American woman raising two very French children with her French husband in Provence, carrying on a lifelong love affair with the language. Imagine a former French major getting vocabulary tips from her young children! That was the experience of Kristin Espinasse, an American who fell in love with a Frenchman and moved to his country to marry him and start a family. When her children began learning the language, she found herself falling in love with it all over again. To relate the stories of her sometimes bumpy, often comic, and always poignant assimilation, she created a blog in the tradition of books such as A Year in Provence and Almost French, drawing more admirers than she ever could have imagined. With an approach that is as charming as it is practical, Espinasse shares her story through the everyday French words and phrases that never seem to make it to American classrooms. "Comptoir" ("counter") is a piece about the intricacies of grocery shopping in France, and "Linge" ("laundry") swoons over the wonderful scent the laundry has after being hung out in the French countryside, while "Toquade" ("crush") tells of Espinasse's young son, who begins piling gel onto his hair before school each morning when he becomes smitten with a girl in class. Steeped in French culture but experienced through American eyes, Words in a French Life will delight armchair travelers, Francophiles, and mothers everywhere.
Words of Promise: A Story about James Weldon Johnson
by Jodie ShullThe young James Weldon Johnson seemed to defy the limits placed on African Americans. He found success as a teacher, lawyer, diplomat, and writer. But Johnson grew increasing disturbed by the harsh treatment blacks suffered. From 1916 to the 1930s, Johnson traveled the country, speaking out for equal opportunities for blacks. He worked to rapidly expand the membership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and became the first black to serve as the NAACP's executive secretary. All his life, Johnson believed in the power of words. It is fitting that today he is best known as a poetstatesman and the author of the words to "Lift Every Voice and Sing."
Words of Witness: Black Women's Autobiography in the Post-Brown Era
by Angela A. ArdsA literary and political genealogy of the last half-century, Words of Witness explores black feminist autobiographical narratives in the context of activism and history since the landmark 1954 segregation case, Brown v. Board of Education. Angela A. Ards examines how activist writers, especially five whose memoirs were published in the 1990s and 2000s, crafted these life stories to engage and shape progressive, post-Brown politics. Exploring works by the critically acclaimed June Jordan and Edwidge Danticat, as well as by popular and emerging authors such as Melba Beals, Rosemary Bray, and Eisa Davis, Ards demonstrates how each text asserts countermemories to official--and often nostalgic--understandings of the civil rights and Black Power movements. She situates each writer as activist-citizen, adopting and remaking particular roles--warrior, "the least of these," immigrant, hip-hop head--to crystallize a range of black feminist responses to urgent but unresolved political issues.
Words of a Goat Princess
by Jessie ReyezA moving poetic debut from a talented artist, Words of a Goat Princess is everything you love about singer/songwriter Jessie Reyez—her rawness, her love affair with the ugly truths of humanity, and so much more.Words of a Goat Princess is the debut poetry collection about life’s struggle and triumphs from Grammy-nominated and JUNO-award winning songwriter Jessie Reyez.With the authenticity and heartbreaking relatability that her fans know and love her for, Reyez brings the breadth of her lived experience to the page as few recording artists can. At times ethereal and visceral, these 43 poems are carefully painted moments that expertly explore love, loss, and identity with an artistry that leaps off the page with every turn.Through this collection of poems and stories, Jessie Reyez shows that she is more than a pop performer, she is a true artist whose star knows no limits.
Words of the Dragon
by Bruce LeeThis collection of newspaper and magazine interviews with Bruce Lee follows his acting career from his debut in The Green Hornet to international stardom in The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, Way of the Dragon and Enter the Dragon.
Words that Make New Jersey History: A Primary Source Reader (expanded edition)
by Howard L. GreenThis is a collection of readings related to New Jersey history, from the colonial era to the present. The pieces reflect New Jersey's diversity and the lives of ordinary people as well as political leaders. Examples range from an advertisement for a runaway servant, epitaphs on gravestones, political cartoons, soldiers' journals, and letters written during World War II.
Words to Outlive Us: Eyewitness Accounts from the Warsaw Ghetto
by Michal GrynbergThe story of the Warsaw Ghetto told through twenty-eight never-before-published accounts-a precious and historic find.In the history of the Holocaust, the Warsaw Ghetto stands as the enduring symbol of Jewish suffering and heroism. This collective memoir-a mosaic of individual diaries, journals, and accounts-follows the fate of the Warsaw Jews from the first bombardments of the Polish capital to the razing of the Jewish district. The life of the ghetto appears here in striking detail: the frantic exchange of apartments as the walls first go up; the daily battle against starvation and disease; the moral ambiguities confronting Jewish bureaucracies under Nazi rule; the ingenuity of smugglers; and the acts of resistance.Written inside the ghetto or in hiding outside its walls, these extraordinary testimonies preserve voices otherwise consigned to oblivion: a woman doctor whose four-year-old son is deemed a threat to the hideout; a painter determined to complete his mural of Job and his trials; a ten-year-old girl barely eluding blackmailers on the Aryan side of the city. Stunning in their immediacy, the urgent accounts recorded here provide much more than invaluable historical detail: they challenge us to imagine the unimaginable.
Wordsmith: How I Made My Dictionary
by Emile Littre T. K. GopalanWriter, physician, philosopher and lexicographer, Émile Littré was commissioned by Hachette in 1841 to compile a new dictionary of the French language. The work, finally started in 1845, took nearly 30 years to complete, during which period France went through a great deal of turbulence. Littré wrote this companion volume, a remarkable novella-length essay, Comment j?ai fait mon dictionnaire (`How I Made My Dictionary?), in 1880, which was translated and published for the first time in English in 1998 by a former Indian diplomat. The translation, now brought back into print by Hachette India, has been commended by Dictionaries, a journal of the Dictionary Society of North America, for being `accurate and conveying the original?s lively, intense effect.? This book is a vital philological addition to the study of words and language, and an insight into the remarkable men who made such study possible by embarking on epic ventures of the literary kind.
Wordsworth
by Juliet BarkerThe figure of William Wordsworth looms over the nineteenth century like a presiding genius. Sage, seer, and Poet Laureate, Wordsworth was revered by his Victorian contemporaries as a writer of tender, lyrical poetry, a controversial challenger of social and artistic convention, a devoted champion of country life, and the spiritual founder of the conservation movement. In this masterful work, the first biography to fully examine Wordsworth's entire life, critically acclaimed biographer Juliet Barker draws on unpublished sources to present a new picture of him as both public icon and private family man. Balancing meticulous research with engaging prose, she reveals not only the public figure who was courted and reviled in equal measure but also the complex, elusive, private citizen behind that image, vividly re-creating the intimacy of Wordsworth's domestic circle, showing the love, laughter, loyalty, and tragedies that bound them together. Wordsworth is a major biography of one of the world's foremost poets, and a rich, unforgettable portrait of a fascinating and fiercely passionate man.