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Anthology
"A volume of short stories that revolve around the history, geography and literary traditions of Berlin." --New York Times Book Review, "Globetrotting," April 2019
"The 13 stories in this welcome entry in Akashic's noir series, all set in 21st-century Berlin, are less about traditional crime and more likely to involve gentrification, immigrants, or Airbnb . . . There's more than enough variety to entertain most readers." --Publishers Weekly
Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city.
Brand-new stories by: Zoë Beck, Ulrich Woelk, Susanne Saygin, Robert Rescue, Johannes Groschupf, Ute Cohen, Katja Bohnet, Matthias Wittekindt, Kai Hensel, Miron Zownir, Max Annas, Michael Wuliger, and Rob Alef. Translated from German by Lucy Jones.
From the introduction by Thomas Wörtche:
Berlin does not make it easy to write noir fiction--or perhaps Berlin makes it too easy. Noir tradition casts a long, influential, and even daunting shadow. Alfred Döblin's and Christopher Isherwood's works, some of Bertolt Brecht's plays, the Morgue poems by Gottfried Benn, M by Fritz Lang, and many other narratives from the first third of the twentieth century, all of which are tinged with noir, set high intellectual standards, and literary and aesthetic benchmarks that are hard to surpass . . .
Neither Döblin nor Benn, Brecht nor Lang, catered to any crime fiction formats. They merely steeped their literary projects in a great deal of noir. And so it is with most of the stories in our anthology: they do not necessarily follow the usual patterns of crime fiction, but regard noir as a license to write as they wish, a certain way of approaching the city, and a prism through which its nature is viewed . . . What's left is history. It is omnipresent in Berlin at every turn; the city is saturated in a history full of blood, violence, and death.
A gorgeously jacketed hardcover anthology of classic stories set in Berlin, by an international array of brilliant writers.
Spanning more than a century, this collection of stories reflects Berlin's rich and turbulent history, chronicling the creative ferment of the Weimar Republic, the devastation of wartime, the cruel divisions of the Berlin Wall, and the aftermath of reunification. Classics by Theodor Fontane and Robert Walser provide a window on privileged society at the turn of the century. Alfred Döblin, Erich Kastner, Vladimir Nabokov, and Christopher Isherwood illuminate the frenetic Golden Twenties and the ruinous crash that followed, while marginal youths roam the city's seamy underside in Irmgard Keun's "The Artificial Silk Girl" and Ernst Haffner's "Blood Brothers." The hero of Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again" visits a city shadowed by Hitler's rise, while in Hans Fallada's "Alone in Berlin" a working-class couple quietly resists the Nazis. Cold War espionage enlivens works by Len Deighton and Ian McEwan; Christa Wolf's "They Divided the Sky" and Peter Schneider's "The Wall Jumper" depict the Berlin Wall's impact on a personal scale; and Thomas Brussig's Stasi officers engage in meaningless surveillance in "Heroes Like Us." Günter Grass shows us German reunification through the eyes of an elderly Luftwaffe veteran while Uwe Timm does so through a writer's madcap wanderings in a bewildering post-Wall landscape. Finally, more recent arrivals--from Chloe Aridjis's Mexican-Jewish university student in "Book of Clouds" to the desperate African refugees in Jenny Erpenbeck's "Go, Went, Gone"--bear witness to Berlin's continuing evolution as an arena of the possible. Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.
Spanning more than a century, this collection of stories reflects Berlin's rich and turbulent history, chronicling the creative ferment of the Weimar Republic, the devastation of wartime, the cruel divisions of the Berlin Wall, and the aftermath of reunification. Classics by Theodor Fontane and Robert Walser provide a window on privileged society at the turn of the century. Alfred Döblin, Erich Kastner, Vladimir Nabokov, and Christopher Isherwood illuminate the frenetic Golden Twenties and the ruinous crash that followed, while marginal youths roam the city's seamy underside in Irmgard Keun's "The Artificial Silk Girl" and Ernst Haffner's "Blood Brothers." The hero of Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again" visits a city shadowed by Hitler's rise, while in Hans Fallada's "Alone in Berlin" a working-class couple quietly resists the Nazis. Cold War espionage enlivens works by Len Deighton and Ian McEwan; Christa Wolf's "They Divided the Sky" and Peter Schneider's "The Wall Jumper" depict the Berlin Wall's impact on a personal scale; and Thomas Brussig's Stasi officers engage in meaningless surveillance in "Heroes Like Us." Günter Grass shows us German reunification through the eyes of an elderly Luftwaffe veteran while Uwe Timm does so through a writer's madcap wanderings in a bewildering post-Wall landscape. Finally, more recent arrivals--from Chloe Aridjis's Mexican-Jewish university student in "Book of Clouds" to the desperate African refugees in Jenny Erpenbeck's "Go, Went, Gone"--bear witness to Berlin's continuing evolution as an arena of the possible. Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.
Edited by The New Yorker's Bill Buford, the pieces collected here "prove that a restless, intrepid spirit isn't unwelcome to American readers" (New York Times Book Review).
This inaugural volume includes stories culled from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the Internet. Contributors include Robert Crumb, Chris Ware, and many others. "A worthy launch for what appears destined to become a valuable annual anthology."--"Kirkus Reviews," starred review
This cutting-edge collection is just right for fans as well as those who are new to the hobby of comics. Contributors include Lynda Barry, R. and Aline Crumb, Kim Deitch, Gilbert Hernandez, Seth, and Art Spiegelman. Older teens.
The Best American Comics showcases the work of both established and up-and-coming contributors. Editor Neil Gaiman--one of the top writers in modern comics and the award-winning author of novels and children's books--has culled the best stories from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the Internet to create this cutting-edge collection. With entries from luminaries such as Tim Hensley, Michael Kupperman, and Dash Shaw, "it's hard to flip through this book without finding a lot worth reading (and rereading)" (The Onion, A.V. Club).
Star-studded and with something for every sexual taste and curiosity Famous for taking her readers to undiscovered places, Susie Bright has changed the rules for writing about sex. Erotica is no longer under-the-covers reading; it's thrilling literature that showcases the best writing around. In Best American Erotica 2006, Bright chooses stories that toy with desire in excerpts from some of the most sexually charged and fearless writing of the year. John Updike's story recalls his narrator's first love and how they began to have sex. David Sedaris takes us into his strip poker card room. Tom Perrotta portrays a bored married man whose wife busts him as he navigates his Internet swinger life. Helen Walsh's diary shows a college student in England who drifts from a promis-ing academic career into the arms of prostitutes. In Best American Erotica 2006, today's most popular writers add their voices to a collection for any reader -- straight, gay, curious -- seeking memorable sex and riveting storytelling. Contributors John Updike, David Sedaris, Tom Perrotta, Steve Almond, Lynn Freed, Maxine Chernoff, Carol Queen, Helen Walsh, Stephen Elliott, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Bob Vickery, James Williams, Will Heinrich, Peggy Munson, Sera Gamble, Salome Wilde, Bianca James, Donna George Storey, Mr. Sleep, Gwen Masters, Gaea Yudron, Kweli Walker, L. Elise Bland, and Sidney Durham
Here you will find the finest essays "judiciously selected from countless publications" (Chicago Tribune), ranging from The New Yorker and Harper's to Swink and Pinch. In his introduction to this year's edition, Adam Gopnik finds that great essays have "text and inner text, personal story and larger point, the thing you're supposed to be paying attention to and some other thing you're really interested in." David Sedaris's quirky, hilarious account of a childhood spent yearning for a home where history was properly respected is also a poignant rumination on surviving the passage of time. In "The Ecstasy of Influence," Jonathan Lethem ponders the intriguing phenomenon of cryptomnesia: a person believes herself to be creating something new but is really recalling similar, previously encountered work. Ariel Levy writes in "The Lesbian Bride's Handbook" of her efforts to plan a party that accurately reflects her lifestyle (which she notes is "not black-tie!") as she confronts head-on what it means to be married. And Lauren Slater is off to "Tripp Lake," recounting the one summer she spent at camp--a summer of color wars, horseback riding, and the "wild sadness" that settled in her when she was away from home.
In the end, Gopnik believes that the only real ambition of an essayist is to be a master of our common life. This latest installment of The Best American Essays is full of writing that reveals, in Gopnik's words, "the breath of things as they are."
In the end, Gopnik believes that the only real ambition of an essayist is to be a master of our common life. This latest installment of The Best American Essays is full of writing that reveals, in Gopnik's words, "the breath of things as they are."
The provocative and best-selling author Christopher Hitchens takes the helm of the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this perennial favorite that is "reliable and yet still surprising--the best of the best" (Kirkus Reviews).
The Best American Series(R)
First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. The Best American Essays 2012 includes Marcia Angell, Miah Arnold, Mark Doty, Joseph Epstein, Jonathan Franzen,
Malcolm Gladwell, Francine Prose, Lauren Slater,
Sandra Tsing Loh, Jose Antonio Vargas, and others
First, Best, and Best-Selling The Best American series is the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. The Best American Essays 2012 includes Marcia Angell, Miah Arnold, Mark Doty, Joseph Epstein, Jonathan Franzen,
Malcolm Gladwell, Francine Prose, Lauren Slater,
Sandra Tsing Loh, Jose Antonio Vargas, and others
Selected and introduced by Cheryl Strayed, the New York Times best-selling author of Wild and the writer of the celebrated column "Dear Sugar," this collection is a treasure trove of fine writing and thought-provoking essays.
"A creature from an alternative universe . . . wanting to understand what is on the American mind should rush to the nearest bookstore and buy a copy of this distinguished anthology . . . Exhilarating." -- Publishers Weekly
The Best American Essays 2014 is selected and introduced by John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of the critically acclaimed essay collection Pulphead. The New York Times placed Sullivan "among the best young nonfiction writers in English" and the New York Times Book Review heralded Pulphead as "the best, and most important, collection of magazine writing since Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again."
"Writing an essay is like catching a wave," posits guest editor Ariel Levy. "To catch a wave, you need skill and nerve, not just moving water." This year's writers are certainly full of nerve, and have crafted a wide range of pieces awash in a diversity of moods, voices, and stances. Leaving an abusive marriage, parting with a younger self, losing your sanity to Fitbit, and even saying goodbye to a beloved pair of pants imbued with meaning are all unified by the daring of their creation. As Levy notes, "Writing around an idea you think is worthwhile--an idea you suspect is an insight--requires real audacity."
The Best American Essays 2015 includes
Hilton Als, Roger Angell, Justin Cronin, Meghan Daum, Anthony Doerr, Margo Jefferson, David Sedaris, Zadie Smith, Rebecca Solnit and others
ARIEL LEVY, guest editor, has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2008. She received the National Magazine Award for essays and criticism for her piece "Thanksgiving in Mongolia," which she is expanding into a book for Random House. Female Chauvinist Pigs, Levy's first book, has been translated into seven languages. She teaches at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and at Wesleyan University. ROBERT ATWAN, the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986, has published on a wide variety of subjects, from American advertising and early photography to ancient divination and Shakespeare. His criticism, essays, humor, poetry, and fiction have appeared in numerous periodicals nationwide.
The Best American Essays 2015 includes
Hilton Als, Roger Angell, Justin Cronin, Meghan Daum, Anthony Doerr, Margo Jefferson, David Sedaris, Zadie Smith, Rebecca Solnit and others
ARIEL LEVY, guest editor, has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2008. She received the National Magazine Award for essays and criticism for her piece "Thanksgiving in Mongolia," which she is expanding into a book for Random House. Female Chauvinist Pigs, Levy's first book, has been translated into seven languages. She teaches at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and at Wesleyan University. ROBERT ATWAN, the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986, has published on a wide variety of subjects, from American advertising and early photography to ancient divination and Shakespeare. His criticism, essays, humor, poetry, and fiction have appeared in numerous periodicals nationwide.
A true essay is "something hazarded, not definitive, not authoritative; something ventured on the basis of the author's personal experience and subjectivity," writes guest editor Jonathan Franzen in his introduction. However, his main criterion for selecting The Best American Essays 2016 was, in a word, risk. Whether the risks involved championing an unpopular opinion, the possibility of ruining a professional career, or irrevocably offending family, for Franzen, "the writer has to be like the firefighter, whose job, while everyone else is fleeing the flames, is to run straight into them." The Best American Essays 2016 includes ALEXANDER CHEE, PAUL CRENSHAW, JAQUIRA DÍAZ, LAURA KIPNIS, AMITAVA KUMAR, SEBASTIAN JUNGER,
JOYCE CAROL OATES, OLIVER SACKS, THOMAS CHATTERTON WILLIAMS and others JONATHAN FRANZEN, guest editor, is the author of five novels, most recently Purity, and five works of nonfiction and translation, including Farther Away and The Kraus Project. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the German Akademie der Künste, and the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. ROBERT ATWAN, the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986, has published on a wide variety of subjects, from American advertising and early photography to ancient divination and Shakespeare. His criticism, essays, humor, poetry, and fiction have appeared in numerous periodicals nationwide.
JOYCE CAROL OATES, OLIVER SACKS, THOMAS CHATTERTON WILLIAMS and others JONATHAN FRANZEN, guest editor, is the author of five novels, most recently Purity, and five works of nonfiction and translation, including Farther Away and The Kraus Project. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the German Akademie der Künste, and the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. ROBERT ATWAN, the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986, has published on a wide variety of subjects, from American advertising and early photography to ancient divination and Shakespeare. His criticism, essays, humor, poetry, and fiction have appeared in numerous periodicals nationwide.
"Jamison has done an exceptional job curating this volume, selecting essayists who are diverse in ideas and experiences, and essays that are challenging, passionate, sobering, and clever."
--Publishers Weekly "The essay is political--and politically useful, by which I mean humanizing and provocative--because of its commitment to nuance, its explorations of contingency, its spirit of unrest, its glee at overturned assumptions; because of the double helix of awe and distrust--faith and doubt--that structures its DNA," writes guest editor Leslie Jamison in her introduction. From the Iraqi desert to an East Jerusalem refugee camp, from the beginnings of the universe to the aftermath of a suicide attempt, the genetic makeup of the eclectic and electric selections in The Best American Essays 2017 "thrill toward complexity." The Best American Essays 2017 includes
RACHEL KAADZI GHANSAH, LAWRENCE JACKSON,
RACHEL KUSHNER, ALAN LIGHTMAN, BERNARD FARAI MATAMBO,
WESLEY MORRIS, HEATHER SELLERS, ANDREA STUART
and others
--Publishers Weekly "The essay is political--and politically useful, by which I mean humanizing and provocative--because of its commitment to nuance, its explorations of contingency, its spirit of unrest, its glee at overturned assumptions; because of the double helix of awe and distrust--faith and doubt--that structures its DNA," writes guest editor Leslie Jamison in her introduction. From the Iraqi desert to an East Jerusalem refugee camp, from the beginnings of the universe to the aftermath of a suicide attempt, the genetic makeup of the eclectic and electric selections in The Best American Essays 2017 "thrill toward complexity." The Best American Essays 2017 includes
RACHEL KAADZI GHANSAH, LAWRENCE JACKSON,
RACHEL KUSHNER, ALAN LIGHTMAN, BERNARD FARAI MATAMBO,
WESLEY MORRIS, HEATHER SELLERS, ANDREA STUART
and others
The Pulitzer-Prize winning and Guggenheim-honored Hilton Als curates the best essays from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites, bringing "the fierce style of street reading and the formal tradition of critical inquiry, reads culture, race, and gender" (New York Times) to the task. "The essay, like love, like life, is indefinable, but you know an essay when you see it, and you know a great one when you feel it, because it is concentrated life," writes Hilton Als in his introduction. Expertly guided by Als's instinct and intellect, The Best American Essays 2018 showcases great essays as well as irresistibly eclectic ones. Go undercover in North Korea, delve into the question of race in the novels of William Faulkner, hang out in the 1970s New York music scene, and take a family road trip cum art pilgrimage. These experiences and more immersive slices of concentrated life await.
A collection of the year's best essays selected by Robert Atwan and guest editor Rebecca Solnit. "Essays are restless literature, trying to find out how things fit together, how we can think about two things at once, how the personal and the public can inform each other, how two overtly dissimilar things share a secret kinship," contends Rebecca Solnit in her introduction. From lost languages and extinct species to life-affirming cosmologies and literary myths that offer cold comfort, the personal and the public collide in The Best American Essays 2019. This searching, necessary collection grapples with what has preoccupied us in the past year--sexual politics, race, violence, invasive technologies--and yet, in reading for the book, Solnit also found "how discovery can be a deep pleasure."
The Best American Essays 2019 includes Michelle Alexander, Jabari Asim, Alexander Chee, Masha Gessen, Jean Guerrero, Elizabeth Kolbert, Terese Marie Mailhot, Jia Tolentino, and others.
The Best American Essays 2019 includes Michelle Alexander, Jabari Asim, Alexander Chee, Masha Gessen, Jean Guerrero, Elizabeth Kolbert, Terese Marie Mailhot, Jia Tolentino, and others.
A collection of the year's best essays selected by André Aciman, author of the worldwide bestseller Call Me by Your Name. "An essay is the child of uncertainty," André Aciman contends in his introduction to The Best American Essays 2020. "The struggle to write what one hopes is entirely true, and the long incubation every piece of writing requires of a writer who is thinking difficult thoughts, are what ultimately give the writing its depth, its magnitude, its grace." The essays Aciman selected center on people facing moments of deep uncertainty, searching for a greater truth. From a Black father's confrontation of his son's illness, to a divorcée's transcendent experience with strangers, to a bartender grieving the tragic loss of a friend, these stories are a master class not just in essay writing but in empathy, artfully imbuing moments of hardship with understanding and that elusive grace. The Best American 2020 Essays includes RABIH ALAMEDDINE - BARBARA EHRENREICH - LESLIE JAMISON JAMAICA KINCAID - ALEX MARZANO-LESNEVICH - A. O. SCOTT - JERALD WALKER - STEPHANIE POWELL WATTS and others