A Portrait of an Idiot as a Young Man

Author: Jon Holmes
Publisher: Orion
ISBN: 1409129799
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Book Description
When Jon Holmes became a father (twice), he was asked to fill in a form detailing his family medical history. Except he couldn't, because he has no idea who his family are. Born to an unnamed, unmarried mother and an unknown father and given up for adoption at four weeks old, Jon decided to document his own history, so that one day he could pass it on to his children. It's a story of how boys grow up to become (stupid) men, of sexual misadventure, of being accidentally shot in the face, of spiders, a ghost, a fatally injured gerbil, American road trips that went wrong, becoming inadvertently locked in Graham Norton's toilet with an Oscar nominated screenwriter, being removed from Mrs Thatcher's vicinity by her security detail and having loving parents who did their best to bring up a child that wasn't theirs. Part memoir, part hilarious insight into why men are so inept, this is the true story of how an unwanted baby in the Midlands went on to become a wanted man in the state of Texas, and everything that happened in between. His children will never be allowed to read it.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Author: James Joyce
Publisher: The Floating Press
ISBN: 1775417891
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 395

Book Description
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is semi-autobiographical, following Joyce's fictional alter-ego through his artistic awakening. The young artist Steven Dedelus begins to rebel against the Irish Catholic dogma of his childhood and discover the great philosophers and artists. He follows his artistic calling to the continent.

The Idiot

Author: Elif Batuman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 014311106X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 465

Book Description
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book • Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction • Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction “Easily the funniest book I’ve read this year.” —GQ “Masterly funny debut novel . . . Erudite but never pretentious, The Idiot will make you crave more books by Batuman.” —Sloane Crosley, Vanity Fair A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself. The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings. At the end of the school year, Ivan goes to Budapest for the summer, and Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside, to teach English in a program run by one of Ivan's friends. On the way, she spends two weeks visiting Paris with Svetlana. Selin's summer in Europe does not resonate with anything she has previously heard about the typical experiences of American college students, or indeed of any other kinds of people. For Selin, this is a journey further inside herself: a coming to grips with the ineffable and exhilarating confusion of first love, and with the growing consciousness that she is doomed to become a writer. With superlative emotional and intellectual sensitivity, mordant wit, and pitch-perfect style, Batuman dramatizes the uncertainty of life on the cusp of adulthood. Her prose is a rare and inimitable combination of tenderness and wisdom; its logic as natural and inscrutable as that of memory itself. The Idiot is a heroic yet self-effacing reckoning with the terror and joy of becoming a person in a world that is as intoxicating as it is disquieting. Batuman's fiction is unguarded against both life's affronts and its beauty--and has at its command the complete range of thinking and feeling which they entail. Named one the best books of the year by Refinery29 • Mashable One • Elle Magazine • The New York Times • Bookpage • Vogue • NPR • Buzzfeed •The Millions

My Heart Is an Idiot

Author: Davy Rothbart
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466802464
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
Davy Rothbart is looking for love in all the wrong places. Constantly. He falls helplessly in love with pretty much every girl he meets—and rarely is the feeling reciprocated. Time after time, he hops in a car and tears across half of America with his heart on his sleeve. He's continually coming up with outrageous schemes, which he always manages to pull off. Well, almost always. But even when things don't work out, Rothbart finds meaning and humor in every moment. Whether it's humiliating a scammer who takes money from aspiring writers or playing harmless (but side-splitting) goofs on his deaf mother, nothing and no one is off-limits. But as much as Rothbart is a tragically lovable, irresistibly brokenhearted hero, it's his prose that's the star of the book. In the tradition of David Sedaris and Sloane Crosley but going places very much his own, his essays show how things that are seemingly so wrong can be so, so right.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Author: James Joyce
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Book Description
In James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the reader is taken on a journey through the life of Stephen Dedalus as he navigates the complexities of religion, nationality, and personal identity. Joyce's stream-of-consciousness narrative style allows for a deep exploration of Dedalus' inner thoughts and struggles, offering a unique literary experience that mirrors the character's internal chaos. Written in the early 20th century, the book reflects the modernist movement and explores themes of individualism and the search for self-expression in a world full of societal constraints. The novel's experimental form and innovative use of language make it a classic in the realm of literary modernism. James Joyce's own background as an Irish writer and his own struggles with societal expectations and artistic expression likely influenced his creation of the character of Stephen Dedalus. By recommending A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I urge readers to delve into this thought-provoking novel that challenges traditional narrative structures and offers a unique perspective on the complexities of human experience.

Portrait Of The Artist As An Old Man

Author: Joseph Heller
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1849836515
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
Imagine an author who has become a legend in his own lifetime - all because of the novel he wrote in the first flush of youth. Novelist Eugene Pota is a cultural icon of the twentieth century, struggling to write what will be the last novel of his career. But what to write about when, like so many noted authors before him, all of Pota's output since that first, landmark novel has been scrutinized and dissected - and found wanting? PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST, AS AN OLD MAN follows Pota's efforts to settle on a subject for his final work. In his search, Heller - through Pota - pays homage to his favourite authors and discusses the problems that have plagued so many writers whose later works failed to live up to the successes of their first: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, Jack London, Joseph Conrad, to name but a few. It is a rare and enthralling look into the artist's search for creativity, a search that comes at a point in life when impotence - both sexual and spiritual - has become a frustrating fact. Joseph Heller must have known that this would be his final novel; it stands as a fitting testament to the life and works of a leading light in modern literature.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Italian History and Culture

Author: Gabrielle Euvino
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780028642345
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414

Book Description
Offers an introduction to Italy's history and culture, from ancient Rome and the power of the Vatican to Mussolini's rise to power, Milan's fashion designers, and Italian cuisine.

Idiot

Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1425041825
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 454

Book Description
Originally written in Russian language, The Idiot is a unique masterpiece. Dostoevsky has depicted a good man, Prince Myshkin, who is trapped in the cruel and wild Petersburg society that is obsessed with avarice, power and manipulation. It is a story of conflicting emotions of love and hatred, friendship and hostility etc. Appealing!...

The Idiot

Author: David Poulter
Publisher: Chipmunkapublishing ltd
ISBN: 1847479677
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 87

Book Description

How to Write Anything

Author: John J. Ruszkiewicz
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0312674902
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 712

Book Description
Because there is more than one writing process How to Write Anything supports students wherever they are in their writing process. Designed to be clear and simple, the Guide lays out focused advice for writing common academic and real-world genres, while the Reference covers the range of writing skills that students needs as they work across genres and disciplines. Genre-based readings — including narratives, reports, arguments, evaluations, proposals and rhetorical, causal, and literary analyses — are sure to engage students and inspire ideas. The result is everything you need to teach composition in a flexible, highly visual guide, reference and reader. This new edition gives students more support for academic writing, more help choosing and working with genres, and more emphasis on multimodal composing.