Lolita - The Story of a Cover Girl

Author: John Bertram
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1440329885
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 772

Book Description
What should Lolita look like? The question has dogged book-cover designers since 1955, when Lolita was first published in a plain green wrapper. The heroine of Vladimir Nabokov's classic novel has often been shown as a teenage seductress in heart-shaped glasses--a deceptive image that misreads the book but has seeped deep into our cultural life, from fashion to film. Lolita - The Story of a Cover Girl: Vladimir Nabokov's Novel in Art and Design reconsiders the cover of Lolita. Eighty renowned graphic designers and illustrators (including Paula Scher, Jessica Hische, Jessica Helfand, and Peter Mendelsund) offer their own takes on the book's jacket, while graphic-design critics and Nabokov scholars survey more than half a century of Lolita covers. You'll also find thoughtful essays from such design luminaries as Mary Gaitskill, Debbie Millman, Michael Bierut, Peter Mendelsund, Jessica Helfand, Alice Twemlow, Johanna Drucker, Leland de la Durantaye, Ellen Pifer, and Stephen Blackwell. Through the lenses of design and literature, Lolita - The Story of a Cover Girl tells the strange design history of one of the most important novels of the 20th century--and offers a new way for thinking visually about difficult books. You'll never look at Lolita the same way again.

Lolita in the Afterlife

Author: Jenny Minton Quigley
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1984898841
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Book Description
A vibrant collection of sharp and essential modern pieces on Vladimir Nabokov’s perennially provocative book—with original contributions from a stellar cast of prominent twenty-first century writers. In 1958, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita was published in the United States to immediate controversy and bestsellerdom. More than sixty years later, this phenomenal novel generates as much buzz as it did when originally published. Central to countless issues at the forefront of our national discourse—art and politics, race and whiteness, gender and power, sexual trauma—Lolita lives on, in an afterlife as blinding as a supernova. Lolita in the Afterlife is edited by the daughter of Lolita’s original publisher in America. WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY Robin Givhan • Aleksandar Hemon • Jim Shepard • Emily Mortimer • Laura Lippman • Erika L. Sánchez • Sarah Weinman • Andre Dubus III • Mary Gaitskill • Zainab Salbi • Christina Baker Kline • Ian Frazier • Cheryl Strayed • Sloane Crosley • Victor LaValle • Jill Kargman • Lila Azam Zanganeh • Roxane Gay • Claire Dederer • Jessica Shattuck • Stacy Schiff • Susan Choi • Kate Elizabeth Russell • Tom Bissell • Kira Von Eichel • Bindu Bansinath • Dani Shapiro • Alexander Chee • Lauren Groff • Morgan Jerkins

Lolita

Author: Vladimir Nabokov
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307744027
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. "The conjunction of a sense of humor with a sense of horror [results in] satire of a very special kind." —The New Yorker Awe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love—love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

The Real Lolita

Author: Sarah Weinman
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1474605621
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Book Description
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is one of the most beloved and notorious novels of all time. And yet, very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of eleven-year-old Sally Horner. Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita restores Sally Horner to her rightful place in the lore of the novel's creation. Drawing upon extensive investigations, legal documents, public records, and interviews with remaining relatives, Sarah Weinman casts a new light on the dark inspiration for a modern classic.

Being Lolita

Author: Alisson Wood
Publisher: Flatiron Books
ISBN: 1250217229
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
A dark relationship evolves between a high schooler and her English teacher in this breathtakingly powerful memoir about a young woman who must learn to rewrite her own story. “Have you ever read Lolita?” So begins seventeen-year-old Alisson’s metamorphosis from student to lover and then victim. A lonely and vulnerable high school senior, Alisson finds solace only in her writing—and in a young, charismatic English teacher, Mr. North. Mr. North gives Alisson a copy of Lolita to read, telling her it is a beautiful story about love. The book soon becomes the backdrop to a connection that blooms from a simple crush into a forbidden romance. But as Mr. North’s hold on her tightens, Alisson is forced to evaluate how much of their narrative is actually a disturbing fiction. In the wake of what becomes a deeply abusive relationship, Alisson is faced again and again with the story of her past, from rereading Lolita in college to working with teenage girls to becoming a professor of creative writing. It is only with that distance and perspective that she understands the ultimate power language has had on her—and how to harness that power to tell her own true story. Being Lolita is a stunning coming-of-age memoir that shines a bright light on our shifting perceptions of consent, vulnerability, and power. This is the story of what happens when a young woman realizes her entire narrative must be rewritten—and then takes back the pen to rewrite it.

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Author: Azar Nafisi
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588360792
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • We all have dreams—things we fantasize about doing and generally never get around to. This is the story of Azar Nafisi’s dream and of the nightmare that made it come true. For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were reading—Pride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller and Lolita—their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran. Nafisi’s account flashes back to the early days of the revolution, when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In those frenetic days, the students took control of the university, expelled faculty members and purged the curriculum. When a radical Islamist in Nafisi’s class questioned her decision to teach The Great Gatsby, which he saw as an immoral work that preached falsehoods of “the Great Satan,” she decided to let him put Gatsby on trial and stood as the sole witness for the defense. Azar Nafisi’s luminous tale offers a fascinating portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from Tehran and gives us a rare glimpse, from the inside, of women’s lives in revolutionary Iran. It is a work of great passion and poetic beauty, written with a startlingly original voice. Praise for Reading Lolita in Tehran “Anyone who has ever belonged to a book group must read this book. Azar Nafisi takes us into the vivid lives of eight women who must meet in secret to explore the forbidden fiction of the West. It is at once a celebration of the power of the novel and a cry of outrage at the reality in which these women are trapped. The ayatollahs don’ t know it, but Nafisi is one of the heroes of the Islamic Republic.”—Geraldine Brooks, author of Nine Parts of Desire

Lo's Diary

Author: Pia Pera
Publisher: Foxrock Books
ISBN: 9780964374027
Category : Teenage girls
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Now in paperback comes Pia Pera's bestselling answer to "Lolita", where the novel is told not from the point of view of the seducer, Humbert Humbert, but of the young girl herself.

Severance

Author: Ling Ma
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374717117
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
Maybe it’s the end of the world, but not for Candace Chen, a millennial, first-generation American and office drone meandering her way into adulthood in Ling Ma’s offbeat, wryly funny, apocalyptic satire, Severance. "A stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring." —Michael Schaub, NPR.org “A satirical spin on the end times-- kind of like The Office meets The Leftovers.” --Estelle Tang, Elle NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: NPR * The New Yorker ("Books We Loved") * Elle * Marie Claire * Amazon Editors * The Paris Review (Staff Favorites) * Refinery29 * Bustle * Buzzfeed * BookPage * Bookish * Mental Floss * Chicago Review of Books * HuffPost * Electric Literature * A.V. Club * Jezebel * Vulture * Literary Hub * Flavorwire Winner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award * Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction * Winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award * Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel * A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 * An Indie Next Selection Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend. So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost. Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers? A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.

Land of Love and Drowning

Author: Tiphanie Yanique
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698168801
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
Recipient of the 2014 American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Foundation Award A major debut from an award-winning writer—an epic family saga set against the magic and the rhythms of the Virgin Islands. In the early 1900s, the Virgin Islands are transferred from Danish to American rule, and an important ship sinks into the Caribbean Sea. Orphaned by the shipwreck are two sisters and their half brother, now faced with an uncertain identity and future. Each of them is unusually beautiful, and each is in possession of a particular magic that will either sink or save them. Chronicling three generations of an island family from 1916 to the 1970s, Land of Love and Drowning is a novel of love and magic, set against the emergence of Saint Thomas into the modern world. Uniquely imagined, with echoes of Toni Morrison, Gabriel García Márquez, and the author’s own Caribbean family history, the story is told in a language and rhythm that evoke an entire world and way of life and love. Following the Bradshaw family through sixty years of fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, love affairs, curses, magical gifts, loyalties, births, deaths, and triumphs, Land of Love and Drowning is a gorgeous, vibrant debut by an exciting, prizewinning young writer.

The Lolita Effect

Author: M. Gigi Durham
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1590205944
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
Pop culture—and the advertising that surrounds it—teaches young girls and boys five myths about sex and sexuality: Girls don't choose boys, boys choose girls—but only sexy girls; there's only one kind of sexy—slender, curvy, white beauty; girls should work to be that type of sexy; the younger a girl is, the sexier she is; and sexual violence can be hot. Together, these five myths make up the Lolita Effect, the mass media trends that work to undermine girls’ self-confidence, that condone female objectification, and that tacitly foster sex crimes. But identifying these myths and breaking them down can help girls learn to recognize progressive and healthy sexuality and protect themselves from degrading media ideas and sexual vulnerability.