Steps (novel)
''Steps'' is a book by a Polish-American writer Jerzy Kosiński, released in 1968 by Random House. The work comprises scores of loosely connected vignettes or short stories, which explore themes of social control and alienation by depicting scenes rich in erotic and violent motives. It was Kosiński's second novel, a follow-up to his successful '' The Painted Bird'' released in 1965. ''Steps'' won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1969. Content ''Steps'' consists of a series of short stories, reminiscences, anecdotes and dialogues, loosely linked to each other or having no connection at all, written in the first person. The book does not name any characters or places where described situations take place. The book has been interpreted as being about "a Polish man's difficulties under the harsh Soviet regime at home played against his experiences as a new immigrant to the United States and its bizarre codes of capitalism." The stories reflect upon control, power, dominat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jerzy Kosiński
Jerzy Kosiński (born Józef Lewinkopf; ; June 14, 1933 – May 3, 1991) was a Polish-American novelist and two-time President of the American Chapter of P.E.N., who wrote primarily in English. Born in Poland, he survived World War II and, as a young man, emigrated to the U.S., where he became a citizen. He was known for various novels, among them ''Being There'' (1970) and '' The Painted Bird'' (1965), which were adapted as films in 1979 and 2019 respectively. Biography Kosiński was born Józef Lewinkopf to Jewish parents in Łódź, Poland. As a child during World War II, he lived in central Poland under a false identity, Jerzy Kosiński, which his father gave to him. Eugeniusz Okoń, a Catholic priest, issued him a forged baptismal certificate, and the Lewinkopf family survived the Holocaust thanks to local villagers who offered assistance to Polish Jews, often at great risk. Kosiński's father was assisted not only by town leaders and clergymen, but also by individua ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel '' Infinite Jest'', which ''Time'' magazine cited as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. His posthumous novel, '' The Pale King'' (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012. The ''Los Angeles Times''s David Ulin called Wallace "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years". Wallace grew up in Illinois and attended Amherst College. He taught English at Emerson College, Illinois State University, and Pomona College. In 2008, he died by suicide at age 46 after struggling with depression for many years. Early life and education David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, to Sally Jean Wallace (' Foster) and James Donald Wallace. The family moved to Champaign-Urbana, Illino ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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American Short Story Collections
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * B ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Erotic Short Story Collections
Eroticism () is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, sculpture, photography, drama, film, music, or literature. It may also be found in advertising. The term may also refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse, desire, or pattern of thoughts. As French novelist Honoré de Balzac stated, eroticism is dependent not just upon an individual's sexual morality, but also the culture and time in which an individual resides. Definitions Because the nature of what is erotic is fluid, early definitions of the term attempted to conceive eroticism as some form of sensual or romantic love or as the human sex drive (libido); for example, the ''Encyclopédie'' of 1755 states that the erotic "is an epithet which is applied to everything with a connection to the lov ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1968 Short Story Collections
The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * January 10 – John Gorton is sworn in as 19th Prime Minister of Australia, taking over from John McEwen after being elected leader of the Liberal Party the previous day, following the disappearance of Harold Holt. Gorton becomes the only Senator to become Prime Minister, though he immediately transfers to the House of Representatives through the 1968 Higgins by-election in Holt's vacant seat. * January 15 – The 1968 Belice earthquake in Sicily kills 380 and injures around 1,000. * January 21 ** Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh – One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on April 8. ** 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash: A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress crashes in Greenland, discharging 4 nuclear bombs. * January ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels '' Black Water'' (1992), ''What I Lived For'' (1994), and ''Blonde'' (2000), and her short story collections ''The Wheel of Love'' (1970) and ''Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories'' (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel ''them'' (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019). Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. Since 2016, she has been a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches short fiction in the spring semesters. Oates was elected to the A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Them (novel)
''Them'' (stylized in all lowercase) is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, the third in the ''Wonderland Quartet'' she inaugurated with ''A Garden of Earthly Delights''. It was published by Vanguard in 1969 and it won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1970."National Book Awards – 1970" (NBF). Retrieved 2012-04-13. (With acceptance speech by Oates and essay by from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) Many years and many awards later, Oates surmised that ''them'' and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes — for the novel ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' and for the plays ''Our Town'' and ''The Skin of Our Teeth'' — and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel '' The Eighth Day''. Early years and family Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Amos Parker Wilder, a newspaper editor and later a U.S. diplomat, and Isabella Thornton Niven. Wilder had four siblings as well as a twin who was stillborn. All of the surviving Wilder children spent part of their childhood in China when their father was stationed in Hong Kong and Shanghai as U.S. Consul General. Thornton's older brother, Amos Niven Wilder, became Hollis Professor of Divinity at the Harvard Divinity School. He was a noted poet and was instrumental in developing the field of theopoetics. Their sister Isabel Wilder was an accomplished writer. They had two more sisters, Charlotte Wilder, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Eighth Day (novel)
''The Eighth Day'' is a 1967 novel by Thornton Wilder. Set in a mining town in southern Illinois, the plot revolves around John Barrington Ashley, who is accused of murdering his neighbor Breckenridge Lansing. The novel was written over the course of twenty months while Wilder was living alone in Douglas, Arizona. ''The Eighth Day'' was the 1968 winner of the National Book Award. Synopsis During a weekend gathering of the Ashley and Lansing families, Breckenridge Lansing is shot while the men are practicing shooting. Townsfolk suspect that Eustacia Lansing, Breckenridge's wife, and John Ashley were having an affair. Ashley is tried, convicted, and sentenced to execution. Miraculously, days before the scheduled execution, he is rescued by mysterious masked men. He then escapes to Chile, where he assumes the identity of a Canadian named James Tolland and finds work in the copper mining industry. While Ashley escapes to Chile, his family—left destitute without his income—turns to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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State Publishing Institute PIW
The State Publishing Institute PIW ( pl, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, PIW) is a Polish publishing house founded in Warsaw by the Polish state after World War II, in 1946. ''PIW'' specializes in literature, history, philosophy, and the social sciences. One of its more popular literary series, published since 1968, ''Współczesna Proza'' (Contemporary Prose), includes award-winning novels in translation by writers such as Umberto Eco, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Vladimir Nabokov, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Kurt Vonnegut, and Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Da .... ''Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy'' also publishes a popular series of biographies of famous individuals, as well as encyclopedic works. As of 2011 its president was Rafał Skąpski. References P ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arnoldo Mondadori Editore
Arnoldo Mondadori Editore () is the biggest publishing company in Italy. History The company was founded in 1907 in Ostiglia by 18-year-old Arnoldo Mondadori who began his publishing career with the publication of the magazine ''Luce!''. In 1912 he founded ''La Sociale'' and published the first book ''AiaMadama'' together with his close friend Tommaso Monicelli and the following year, ''La Lampada'', a series of children's books. The publishing house kept working intensely even during the First World War, mainly on the publication of magazines for the troops on the front such as ''La Tradotta'', which included contributions from famous illustrators and writers such as Soffici, De Chirico and Carrà. In 1919 the publishing house headquarters were transferred to Milan. After the First World War, Mondadori launched several successful book series including Gialli Mondadori in 1929, the first example of an Italian book series dedicated to detective and crime novels, by internati ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Droemer Knaur
Droemer Knaur is a publishing group based in Munich. The group consists of the book publishers Droemer, Knaur, the Pattloch Publisher and O.W. Barth. Droemer Knaur belongs to the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. Program Droemer Knaur Publishing publishes novels and nonfiction from German and international authors. Through the broad ranged publishing program and the publication of bestselling authors like Johannes Mario Simmel, Droemer Knaur became one of the most prestigious publishing houses for fiction in Germany. In the category of popular fiction, historical novels, detective stories, thrillers, fantasy and romantic literature are published. In the category non-fiction are among others, biographies, guides, esotericism and conspiracy theories are published. They also publish international bestselling authors for the German market and sell licenses to German authors all over the world. History The origins of the publishing house lie in the Leipzig steam bookbinding ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |