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Jailbird (novel)
''Jailbird'' is a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, published in 1979. The book is regarded as Kurt Vonnegut's " Watergate novel." The novel is narrated by protagonist Walter F. Starbuck, a man recently released from a minimum-security prison in Georgia after serving time for his small role in the Watergate Scandal. ''Jailbird'' is written as a standard memoir, revealing Starbuck's present situation, then coming full circle to tell the story of his first two days after being released from prison. Through Starbuck, ''Jailbird'' discusses the history of the American labor movement, alongside corporate America, McCarthyism, the Nixon administration, and Watergate. ''Jailbird'' includes a cameo by Kilgore Trout, a recurring Vonnegutian character known for writing science fiction novels and short stories. Unlike other versions of the character, this "Kilgore Trout" is revealed to be the pseudonym of a character in prison, deliberately contradicting the autobiographical details of Trout's li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works; further collections have been published after his death. Born and raised in Indianapolis, Vonnegut attended Cornell University but withdrew in January 1943 and enlisted in the US Army. As part of his training, he studied mechanical engineering at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and the University of Tennessee. He was then deployed to Europe to fight in World War II and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was interned in Dresden, where he survived the Allied bombing of the city in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned. After the war, he married Jane Marie Cox, with whom he had three children. He adopted his nephews after his siste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unreliable Narrator
An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''. While unreliable narrators are almost by definition first-person narrators, arguments have been made for the existence of unreliable second- and third-person narrators, especially within the context of film and television, and sometimes also in literature. Sometimes the narrator's unreliability is made immediately evident. For instance, a story may open with the narrator making a plainly false or delusional claim or admitting to being severely mentally ill, or the story itself may have a frame in which the narrator appears as a character, with clues to the character's unreliability. A more dramatic use of the device delays the revelation until near the story's end. In some cases, the reader discovers that in the foregoing narrative, the narrato ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1979 American Novels
Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ''Chiquitita'' to commemorate the event. ** The United States and the People's Republic of China establish full Sino-American relations, diplomatic relations. ** Following a deal agreed during 1978, France, French carmaker Peugeot completes a takeover of American manufacturer Chrysler's Chrysler Europe, European operations, which are based in United Kingdom, Britain's former Rootes Group factories, as well as the former Simca factories in France. * January 7 – Cambodian–Vietnamese War: The People's Army of Vietnam and Vietnamese-backed Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, Cambodian insurgents announce the fall of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and the collapse of the Pol Pot regime. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge retreat west to an area ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palm Sunday (book)
''Palm Sunday'' is a 1981 collection of short stories, speeches, essays, letters, and other previously unpublished works by author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Contents In addition to original material, ''Palm Sunday'' contains the following works (written by Vonnegut unless otherwise stated): *"Dear Mr. McCarthy" (letter) *"Un-American Nonsense" (essay) *"God's Law" (speech) *"Dear Felix" (letter) *"An Account of the Ancestry of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, by an Ancient Friend of His Family" (formal essay by John G. Raunch) *"What I Liked About Cornell" (speech) *"When I Lost My Innocence" (essay) *"I Am Embarrassed" (speech) *"How to Write with Style" (essay) *Self-interview from ''The Paris Review'' *"Who in America is Truly Happy?" (essay) *"Something Happened" (review of Joseph Heller's novel) *"The Rocky Graziano of American Letters" (speech) *"The Best of Bob and Ray" (Vonnegut's introduction to a book by Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding) *"James T. Farrell" (funeral speech) *"Lavina Lyon" (funera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacobin Magazine
''Jacobin'' is an American political magazine based in New York. It offers socialist perspectives on politics, economics and culture. As of 2021, the magazine reported a paid print circulation of 75,000 and over 3 million monthly visitors. History and overview The publication began as an online magazine released in September 2010, expanding into a print journal later that year. ''Jacobin'' founder Bhaskar Sunkara describes ''Jacobin'' as a radical publication being "largely the product of a younger generation not quite as tied to the Cold War paradigms that sustained the old leftist intellectual milieux like ''Dissent'' or '' New Politics'', but still eager to confront, rather than table, the questions that arose from the experience of the left in the 20th century". In 2014, Sunkara said that the aim of the magazine was to create a publication which combined resolutely socialist politics with the accessibility of titles such as ''The Nation'' and ''The New Republic''. Not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirkus Reviews
''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers' literature. ''Kirkus Reviews'', published on the first and 15th of each month; previews books before their publication. ''Kirkus'' reviews over 10,000 titles per year. History Virginia Kirkus was hired by Harper & Brothers to establish a children's book department in 1926. The department was eliminated as an economic measure in 1932 (for about a year), so Kirkus left and soon established her own book review service. Initially, she arranged to get galley proofs of "20 or so" books in advance of their publication; almost 80 years later, the service was receiving hundreds of books weekly and reviewing about 100. Initially titled ''Bulletin'' by Kirkus' Bookshop Service from 1933 to 1954, the title wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sermon On The Mount
The Sermon on the Mount ( anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin section title: ) is a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth found in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5, 6, and 7). that emphasizes his moral teachings. It is the first of five discourses in the Gospel and has been one of the most widely quoted sections of the Gospels.. pages xi–xiv. Background and setting The Sermon on the Mount is placed relatively early in Matthew's portrayal of Jesus' ministry--following, in chapter 3, his baptism by John and, in chapter 4, his sojourn and temptation in the desert, his call of four disciples, and his early preaching in Galilee. The five discourses in the Gospel of Matthew are: the Sermon on the Mount (5-7), the discourse on discipleship (10), the discourse of parables (13), the discourse on the community of faith (18), and the discourse on future events (24-25). Also, like all the other "discourses," this one has Matthew's concluding statem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York Times Book Review
''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York City. Overview The ''New York Times'' has published a book review section since October 10, 1896, announcing: "We begin today the publication of a Supplement which contains reviews of new books ... and other interesting matter ... associated with news of the day." In 1911, the review was moved to Sundays, on the theory that it would be more appreciatively received by readers with a bit of time on their hands. The target audience is an intelligent, general-interest adult reader. The ''Times'' publishes two versions each week, one with a cover price sold via subscription, bookstores and newsstands; the other with no cover price included as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kilgore Trout
Kilgore Trout is a fictional character created by author Kurt Vonnegut. In Vonnegut's work, Trout is a notably unsuccessful author of paperback science fiction novels. "Trout" was inspired by the name of the author Theodore Sturgeon (Vonnegut's colleague in the genre of science fiction—Vonnegut was amused by the notion of a person with the name of a fish, Sturgeon, hence Trout), although Trout's consistent presence in Vonnegut's works has also led critics to view him as the author's own alter ego. In a homage to Vonnegut, Kilgore Trout is also the titular author of the novel '' Venus on the Half-Shell'' (1975), written pseudonymously by Philip José Farmer. Origins of the character In 1957, Theodore Sturgeon moved to Truro, Massachusetts, where he befriended Vonnegut, then working as a salesman in a Saab dealership. At the time, both were writing in the genre of science fiction; Vonnegut had already published '' Player Piano'', retitled ''Utopia 14'' in paperback, while St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delacorte Press
Dell Publishing Company, Inc. is an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, that was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. with $10,000 (approx. $145,000 in 2021), two employees and one magazine title, ''I Confess'', and soon began turning out dozens of pulp magazines, which included penny-a-word detective stories, articles about films, and romance books (or "smoochies" as they were known in the slang of the day). During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Dell was one of the largest publishers of magazines, including pulp magazines. Their line of humor magazines included ''1000 Jokes'', launched in 1938. From 1929 to 1974, they published comics under the Dell Comics line, the bulk of which (1938–68) was done in partnership with Western Publishing. In 1943, Dell entered into paperback book publishing with Dell Paperbacks. They also used the book imprints of Dial Press, Delacorte Books, Delacorte Press, Yearling Books, and Laurel Leaf Library. Dell was acquired b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nixon Administration
Richard Nixon's tenure as the 37th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1969, and ended when he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of almost certain impeachment because of the Watergate Scandal and resigned, the only U.S. president ever to do so. He was succeeded by Gerald Ford, whom he had appointed vice president after Spiro Agnew became embroiled in a separate corruption scandal and was forced to resign. Nixon, a prominent member of the Republican Party from California who previously served as vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower, took office following the 1968 presidential election, in which he defeated Hubert Humphrey, the then-incumbent vice president. Although he had built his reputation as a very active Republican campaigner, Nixon downplayed partisanship in his 1972 landslide reelection. Nixon's primary focus while in office was on foreign affairs. He focused on détente with the People's Republic of China and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term originally referred to the controversial practices and policies of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting from the late 1940s through the 1950s. It was characterized by heightened political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals, and a campaign spreading fear of alleged communist and socialist influence on American institutions and of espionage by Soviet agents. After the mid-1950s, McCarthyism began to decline, mainly due to Joseph McCarthy's gradual loss of public popularity and credibility after several of his accusations were found to be false, and sustained opposition from the U.S. Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren on human rights ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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