In war-torn Asia and stricken Europe, men and women, still young but veterans of harsh experience, must reinvent their lives and expectations, and learn, from their past, to dream again. Some will fulfill their destinies, others will falter. At the center of the story, a brave and brilliant soldier find that survival and worldly achievement are not enough. His counterpart, a young girl living in occupied Japan and tending her dying brother, falls...

Offering conversations, anecdotes, confidences and observations, the author of The Art of Intimacy asks eight legendary artists what has sustained them in the long run, and along the way, radically redefines artistic success by shifting the focus from novelty, output and external recognition toward freedom, fluidity, resistance, community and survival.

"The gimmick lies latent in every made thing in capitalism, from the banana slicer to the cryptocurrency derivative to the readymade artwork that interprets itself. It includes both the painstakingly devised and the gratuitously disposable. It is what we call things when uncertain if they are over- or underperforming, if they are historically backward or just as problematically advanced, if they are wonders or tricks. With its promises about the saving...

"William O'Daly's poetic response to four decades spent translating Pablo Neruda's poetry takes readers on a pilgrimage to Don Pablo's home by the sea. time breaks free from linear constraints amidst O'Daly's lines that intertwine spiritual and physical planes. Paired with Galen Garwood's stunning photographs, the tension between what was, what is, and what could be makes this collaboration between two masters a must-read."--Back cover.

Joe Posnanski explores Harry Houdini's impact on global culture and the reasons his legacy endures to this day. Harry Houdini. Say his name and a number of things come to mind. Escapes. Illusions. Magic. Chains. Safes. Live burials. Close to a century after his death, nearly every person in America knows his name from a young age, capturing their imaginations with his death-defying stunts and daring acts. He inspired countless people, from all walks...

Here, from the incomparable John Waters, is a paean to the power of subversive inspiration that will delight, amuse, enrich--and happily horrify readers everywhere. This book is, in fact, a self-portrait told through intimate profiles of favorite personalities--some famous, some unknown, some surprisingly middle-of-the-road. From Esther Martin, the owner of the scariest bar in Baltimore, to playwright Tennessee Williams; from atheist leader Madalyn...

In 1971 Jay Parini was an aspiring poet and graduate student of literature at University of St Andrews in Scotland; he was also in flight from being drafted into service in the Vietnam War. One day his friend and mentor, Alastair Reid, asked Jay if he could play host for a "visiting Latin American writer" while he attended to business in London. He agreed--and that "writer" turned out to be the blind and aged and eccentric master of literary compression...

Tells of four friendships: Hawthorne and Melville; James and Wharton; Porter and Welty; Bishop and Lowell.