"" Do you even remember what an Iceman was? Have you witnessed the drooping, unapologetic naked bodies of aged men and women shunted away in a nursing home? Have you wondered about the eccentric man or woman holding out amidst the broad lawns and narrow minds of the suburbs? Poet George Held is a writer who looks so closely that I can imagine him with a permanent squint. His portraits, his poetry is full of unflinching, and often stunning description, pathos and humor."" - Doug Holder/Ibbetson Street Press

Do you even remember what an Iceman was? Have you witnessed the drooping, unapologetic naked bodies of aged men and women shunted away in a nursing home? Have you wondered about the eccentric man or woman holding out amidst the broad lawns and narrow minds of the suburbs? Poet George Held is a writer who looks so closely that I can imagine him with a permanent squint. His portraits, his poetry is full of unflinching, and often stunning description, pathos and humor

Amid the instability and violence of turn-of-the-century industrialization and urbanization Russians embraced a revolutionary art form to reflect the aspirations and motivations of a new class. In The Magic Mirror Denise Youngblood portrays a newly urbanized entrepreneurial middle class not the revolutionaries or imperialists of historians and the movies they made and paid to see. Upon those screens they saw their lives depicted in all their variety and uncertainty. Youngblood provides a cultural angle into an era most often viewed through a revolutionary lens. Film and the film industry illuminates and reflects the popular attitudes of the time. The Magic Mirror is a study of the ten years of native film production through the Revolutions of 1917, based almost exclusively on Russian language primary sources. Topics examined include the organization and evolution of the industry followed by description and analysis of genres, motifs, and themes as exemplified in 65 of the most important surviving films."

The eagerly anticipated final volume of the award-winning, definitive biography of Franz Kafka How did Kafka become Kafka? This eagerly anticipated third and final volume of Reiner Stach's definitive biography of the writer answers that question with more facts and insight than ever before, describing the complex personal, political, and cultural circumstances that shaped the young Franz Kafka (1883–1924). It tells the story of the years from his birth in Prague to the beginning of his professional and literary career in 1910, taking the reader up to just before the breakthrough that resulted in his first masterpieces, including "The Metamorphosis." Brimming with vivid and often startling details, Stach’s narrative invites readers deep inside this neglected period of Kafka’s life. The book’s richly atmospheric portrait of his German Jewish merchant family and his education, psychological development, and sexual maturation draws on numerous sources, some still unpublished, including family letters, schoolmates’ memoirs, and early diaries of his close friend Max Brod. The biography also provides a colorful panorama of Kafka’s wider world, especially the convoluted politics and culture of Prague. Before World War I, Kafka lived in a society at the threshold of modernity but torn by conflict, and Stach provides poignant details of how the adolescent Kafka witnessed violent outbreaks of anti-Semitism and nationalism. The reader also learns how he developed a passionate interest in new technologies, particularly movies and airplanes, and why another interest—his predilection for the back-to-nature movement—stemmed from his “nervous” surroundings rather than personal eccentricity. The crowning volume to a masterly biography, this is an unmatched account of how a boy who grew up in an old Central European monarchy became a writer who helped create modern literature.

A controversial oceanographer investigates irradiated plankton, fish, and whales to uncover evidence that oceanic nuclear waste is threatening to destroy the fragile Arctic ecosystem. By the author of Sea Change. Reprint.

This memoir of an American woman’s life in Moscow traces the social and cultural evolution of Russia from the era of Krushchev to the era of Putin. In the mid-1960s, Naomi Collins was a graduate student at Moscow State University. As the 21st century began, she was the wife of the American Ambassador to Russia. In this insightful memoir, she shares her reflections and impressions of life as an American woman living in the Russian capital over the course of four decades. Rather than retracing the economic and political events of the period, Collins focuses her narrative on daily as it changed over the years. She offers fascinating anecdotal snapshots that reveal rare insight into the evolving state of the nation. “This book is like a script for a documentary spanning four decades when an especially astute and literate observer watched Russia emerge from stagnation and enter a period of dramatic economic, social, and political change and, on many fronts, upheaval.” —Strobe Talbott, President of the Brookings Institution