Bewilderment: A Novel

Author: Richard Powers
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393881156
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Book Description
AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB SELECTION An Instant New York Times Bestseller Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction Longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory. The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain… With its soaring descriptions of the natural world, its tantalizing vision of life beyond, and its account of a father and son’s ferocious love, Bewilderment marks Richard Powers’s most intimate and moving novel. At its heart lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?

Bewilderment

Author: David Ferry
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226244881
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Book Description
Winner of the 2012 National Book Award for Poetry. To read David Ferry’s Bewilderment is to be reminded that poetry of the highest order can be made by the subtlest of means. The passionate nature and originality of Ferry’s prosodic daring works astonishing transformations that take your breath away. In poem after poem, his diction modulates beautifully between plainspoken high eloquence and colloquial vigor, making his distinctive speech one of the most interesting and ravishing achievements of the past half century. Ferry has fully realized both the potential for vocal expressiveness in his phrasing and the way his phrasing plays against—and with—his genius for metrical variation. His vocal phrasing thus becomes an amazingly flexible instrument of psychological and spiritual inquiry. Most poets write inside a very narrow range of experience and feeling, whether in free or metered verse. But Ferry’s use of meter tends to enhance the colloquial nature of his writing, while giving him access to an immense variety of feeling. Sometimes that feeling is so powerful it’s like witnessing a volcanologist taking measurements in the midst of an eruption. Ferry’s translations, meanwhile, are amazingly acclimated English poems. Once his voice takes hold of them they are as bred in the bone as all his other work. And the translations in this book are vitally related to the original poems around them. From Bewilderment: October The day was hot, and entirely breathless, so The remarkably quiet remarkably steady leaf fall Seemed as if it had no cause at all. The ticking sound of falling leaves was like The ticking sound of gentle rainfall as They gently fell on leaves already fallen, Or as, when as they passed them in their falling, Now and again it happened that one of them touched One or another leaf as yet not falling, Still clinging to the idea of being summer: As if the leaves that were falling, but not the day, Had read, and understood, the calendar.

The Overstory: A Novel

Author: Richard Powers
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393635538
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 420

Book Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction Winner of the William Dean Howells Medal Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Over One Year on the New York Times Bestseller List A New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year "The best novel ever written about trees, and really just one of the best novels, period." —Ann Patchett The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of—and paean to—the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

Bewildered Travel

Author: Frederick J. Ruf
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813934265
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Book Description
Why do we travel? Ostensibly an act of leisure, travel finds us thrusting ourselves into jets flying miles above the earth, only to endure dislocations of time and space, foods and languages foreign to our body and mind, and encounters with strangers on whom we must suddenly depend. Travel is not merely a break from routine; it is its antithesis, a voluntary trading in of the security one feels at home for unpredictability and confusion. In Bewildered Travel Frederick Ruf argues that this confusion, which we might think of simply as a necessary evil, is in fact the very thing we are seeking when we leave home. Ruf relates this quest for confusion to our religious behavior. Citing William James, who defined the religious as what enables us to "front life," Ruf contends that the search for bewilderment allows us to point our craft into the wind and sail headlong into the storm rather than flee from it. This view challenges the Eliadean tradition that stresses religious ritual as a shield against the world’s chaos. Ruf sees our departures from the familiar as a crucial component in a spiritual life, reminding us of the central role of pilgrimage in religion. In addition to his own revealing experiences as a traveler, Ruf presents the reader with the journeys of a large and diverse assortment of notable Americans, including Henry Miller, Paul Bowles, Mark Twain, Mary Oliver, and Walt Whitman. These accounts take us from the Middle East to the Philippines, India to Nicaragua, Mexico to Morocco--and, in one threatening instance, simply to the edge of the author’s own neighborhood. "What gives value to travel is fear," wrote Camus. This book illustrates the truth of that statement.

A Love Story for Bewildered Girls

Author: Emma Morgan
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241357772
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Book Description
'An utterly gorgeous novel. It will forever hold my heart in its pages' Pandora Sykes, co-host of The High-Low podcast Grace loves a woman. Annie loves a man. Violet isn't quite sure. But you'll love them all... Grace has what one might call a 'full and interesting life' which is code for not married and has no kids. Her life is the envy of her straight friends, but all this time she has been waiting in secret for love to hit her so hard that she runs out of breath, like the way a wave in a rough sea bowls you over, slams you into the sand, and nearly drowns you. When Grace meets a beautiful woman at a party, she falls suddenly and desperately in love. At the same party, lawyer Annie meets the man of her dreams - the only man she's ever met whose table manners are up to her mother's standards. And across the city, Violet, who is afraid of almost everything, is making another discovery of her own: that for the first time in her life she's falling in love with a woman. A Love Story for Bewildered Girls is a moving and exquisitely funny novel about love, sex and heartbreak. 'Exquisitely tender, beautifully written, funny and sad' Daisy Buchanan, author of How to Be a Grown-up 'Funny, honest, brilliant' Nina Stibbe, bestselling author of Love, Nina 'I absolutely loved this book by Emma Morgan which follows 3 women's very different love lives... I inhaled it' Emma Gannon, Sunday Times best-selling author and host of the podcast Ctrl-Alt-Delete 'Funny, touching, uplifting, thoroughly modern' Lauren Bravo, author of What Would the Spice Girls Do? 'I was transfixed by this funny and moving story of three women navigating their way through the complexities of love, life and the search for personal fulfilment' Sarah Haywood, author of The Cactus, a Richard & Judy Book Club Pick 'A charming modern romance' Glamour 'Beautifully written, Morgan's novel is a seriously impressive debut' Stylist 'Emma Morgan is an author to look out for' Julie Cohen, author of 'Louis & Louise' LONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI PRIZE 2020

The Bewildered Bride

Author: Vanessa Riley
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
ISBN: 1640638474
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 374

Book Description
Ruth Croome, a Blackamoor heiress, was supposed to get married in a gorgeous wedding gown, made from her father’s exquisite fabrics. Instead, they eloped to Gretna Green and upon returning, their carriage was beset by highwaymen and she witnessed the murder of her new husband. Now, four years later, with a child, she wants to move on with her life. A marriage of convenience will do. Ruth already had a love for the ages. Adam Wilky is really the heir to the Wycliff barony—which he never told Ruth. Too much danger. So many secrets. When he was nearly beaten to death and sold into impressment, he thought Ruth had died, too. Ready for revenge, he finally returns and discovers Ruth alive—with a son who could only be his—and she is furious to discover he lied to her. Now it’ll take more than remembered passion if he hopes to win his reluctant wife back... Each book in the Advertisements for Love series is STANDALONE: * The Bittersweet Bride * The Bashful Bride * The Butterfly Bride * The Bewildered Bride

Meaning and Melancholia

Author: Christopher Bollas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351018485
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Book Description
Meaning and Melancholia: Life in the Age of Bewilderment sees Christopher Bollas apply his creative and innovative psychoanalytic thinking to various contemporary social, cultural and political themes. This book offers an incisive exploration of powerful trends within, and between, nations in the West over the past two hundred years. The author traces shifts in psychological forces and ‘frames of mind’, that have resulted in a crucial ‘intellectual climate change’. He contends that recent decades have seen rapid and significant transformations in how we define our ‘selves’, as a new emphasis on instant connectedness has come to replace reflectiveness and introspection. Bollas argues that this trend has culminated in the current rise of psychophobia; a fear of the mind and a rejection of depth psychologies that has paved the way for what he sees as hate based solutions to world problems, such as the victory of Trump in America and Brexit in the United Kingdom. He maintains that, if we are to counter the threat to democracy posed by these changes and refind a more balanced concept of the self within society, we must put psychological insight at the heart of a new kind of analysis of culture and society. This remarkable, thought-provoking book will appeal to anyone interested in politics, social policy and cultural studies, and in the gaining of insight into the ongoing challenges faced by the Western democracies and the global community.

Bewildered

Author: Laura Waters
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1925972399
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Book Description
What would move you to ditch your life and take off into the wild for six months? For Melbourne woman Laura Waters, it took the implosion of a toxic relationship and a crippling bout of anxiety. Armed with a compass, a paper map and as much food as she could carry, she set out to walk the untamed landscapes of New Zealand’s Te Araroa track, 3000 kilometres of raw, wild, mountainous trail winding from the top of the North Island to the frosty tip of the South Island. But when her walking partner dropped out on the first day, she was faced with a choice: abandon the journey and retreat to the safety of home, or throw caution to the wind and continue on – alone. She chose to walk on. For six months, she battled not only treacherous mountain ridges and river crossings, but also the demons of self-doubt and anxiety, and the shadow of an emotionally abusive relationship. At the end of Te Araroa (‘the long pathway’, as it is translated from Maori) it was the hardearned insights into mental health, emotional wellbeing and fulfilling relationships – with others as well as with herself – that were Laura’s greatest accomplishments. She emerged ‘rewilded’, and it transformed her life.

Diana, Herself

Author: Martha Beck
Publisher: Bewilderment Chronicles
ISBN: 9781944264031
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
In this exuberant allegory, bestselling memoir and self-help author Martha Beck takes readers into the wild parts of the world and the human psyche. The story of Diana, Herself helps every reader chart a course for awakening to greater joy, adventure, and purpose.

The Challenge of Bewilderment

Author: Paul B. Armstrong
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501722727
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Book Description
The Challenge of Bewilderment treats the epistemology of representation in major works by Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Ford Madox Ford, attempting to explain how the novel turned away from its traditional concern with realistic representation and toward self-consciousness about the relation between knowing and narration. Paul B. Armstrong here addresses the pivotal thematic experience of "bewilderment," an experience that challenges the reader’s very sense of reality and that shows it to have no more certainty or stability than an interpretative construct. Through readings of The Sacred Fount and The Ambassadors by James, Lord Jim and Nostromo by Conrad, and The Good Soldier and Parade’s End by Ford, Armstrong examines how each writer dramatizes his understanding of the act of knowing. Armstrong demonstrates how the novelists’ attitudes toward the process of knowing inform experiments with representation, through which they thematize the relation between the understanding of a fictional world and everyday habits of perception. Finally, he considers how these experiments with the strategies of narration produce a heightened awareness of the process of interpretation.