The Once and Future Muse presents the first major study of the life and work of Dominican-born bilingual American poet and translator Rhina P. Espaillat (b. 1932). Beginning with her literary celebrity as the youngest poet ever inducted into the Poetry Society of America, it traces her relative obscurity after 1952 when she married and took on family and employment responsibilities, to her triumphant return to the poetry spotlight decades later when she reclaimed her former prestige with a series of award-winning poetry collections. The authors define Espaillat's place in American letters with attention to her formalist aesthetics, Hispanic Caribbean immigrant background, poetic community building, bilingual ethos, and domestically minded woman-of-color feminism. Addressing the temporality of her oeuvre—her publishing before and after the splitting of American literature into distinct ethnic segments—this work also highlights the demands that the social transformations of the 1960s placed on literary artists, critics, and readers alike.

From the publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux: a first novel, at once hilarious and tender, about the decades-long rivalry between two publishing lions, and the iconic, alluring writer who has obsessed them both. Paul Dukach is heir apparent at Purcell & Stern, one of the last independent publishing houses in New York, whose shabby offices on Union Square belie the treasures on its list. Working with his boss, the flamboyant Homer Stern, Paul learns the ins and outs of the book trade—how to work an agent over lunch; how to swim with the literary sharks at the Frankfurt Book Fair; and, most important, how to nurse the fragile egos of the dazzling, volatile authors he adores. But Paul’s deepest admiration has always been reserved for one writer: poet Ida Perkins, whose audacious verse and notorious private life have shaped America’s contemporary literary landscape, and whose longtime publisher—also her cousin and erstwhile lover—happens to be Homer’s biggest rival. And when Paul at last has the chance to meet Ida at her Venetian palazzo, she entrusts him with her greatest secret—one that will change all of their lives forever. Studded with juicy details only a quintessential insider could know, written with both satiric verve and openhearted nostalgia, Muse is a brilliant, haunting book about the beguiling interplay between life and art, and the eternal romance of literature.

In this concise historical analysis of the Mexican Revolution, Gilbert M. Joseph and Jürgen Buchenau explore the revolution's causes, dynamics, consequences, and legacies. They do so from varied perspectives, including those of campesinos and workers; politicians, artists, intellectuals, and students; women and men; the well-heeled, the dispossessed, and the multitude in the middle. In the process, they engage major questions about the revolution. How did the revolutionary process and its aftermath modernize the nation's economy and political system and transform the lives of ordinary Mexicans? Rather than conceiving the revolution as either the culminating popular struggle of Mexico's history or the triumph of a new (not so revolutionary) state over the people, Joseph and Buchenau examine the textured process through which state and society shaped each other. The result is a lively history of Mexico's "long twentieth century," from Porfirio Díaz's modernizing dictatorship to the neoliberalism of the present day.

A memoir by the legendary cookbook editor who was present at the creation of the American food revolution and played a pivotal role in shaping it • “Engrossing. . . . The Tenth Muse lets you pull up a chair at the table where American gastronomic history took place.”—O, The Oprah Magazine Living in Paris after World War II, Jones broke free of bland American food and reveled in everyday French culinary delights. On returning to the States she published Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The rest is publishing and gastronomic history. A new world now opened up to Jones as she discovered, with her husband Evan, the delights of American food, publishing some of the premier culinary luminaries of the twentieth century: from Julia Child, James Beard, and M.F.K. Fisher to Claudia Roden, Edna Lewis, and Lidia Bastianich. Also included are fifty of Jones's favorite recipes collected over a lifetime of cooking-each with its own story and special tips. “Lovely. . . . A rare glimpse into the roots of the modern culinary world.”—Chicago Tribune

Caroline Blackwood was born into the Guinness family in 1931, the daughter of the Fourth Marquess and Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava. Brought up on the ancestral estate in Northern Ireland, Blackwood moved easily among the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, the Soho bohemians of postwar England, and the liberal intelligentsia of 1960s New York. She was on intimate terms with some of the most celebrated artists and writers of her time. An unpredictable beauty known for her wit and her courage, she has been called a muse to genius. But her marriages to three brilliant men: the painter Lucian Freud, the composer Israel Citkowitz, and the poet Robert Lowell were as troubled as they were inspiring. During her marriage to Lucian Freud, Caroline became part of an artistic and literary group that included Francis Bacon and Cyril Connolly who was infatuated with her but eventually Freud's gambling caused irrevocable problems between them. Caroline was also in the grips of her own unfolding tragedy: a fatal attraction to alcohol that would plague the rest of her life. Upon the breakup of her first marriage, she moved to America , where she met her second and third husbands. Once regarded as the obvious successor to Aaron Copland, Israel Citkowitz had stopped composing long before he met Caroline. While he and Caroline had three children together, it was her subsequent seven year marriage to Robert Lowell that she considered her "main marriage." Her life with Lowell was probably the most difficult time of her life as she dealt with his increasingly frequent and worsening attacks of mania. And to Lowell she was not only an inspiration but_as he described in his Pulitzer-prize- winning book of verse The Dolphin, she was also "a mermaid who dines upon the bones of her winded lovers." In 1977, Robert Lowell fled London to return to his former wife Elizabeth Hardwick. He died from a heart attack in the backseat of a taxi, clutching Girl in Bed, Lucian Freud's haunting portrait of Caroline. Blackwood was an artist in her own right. Her literary talents were dark and satiric; her ten books of fiction and nonfiction betrayed an extraordinary eye for human physiognomy, attire, and behavior. Arguably her best book, Great Granny Webster described the comic terrors of her upbringing in Northern Ireland, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She herself died of cancer on Valentine's Day 1996, at the age of sixty-four. Dangerous Muse is the first biography of Lady Caroline Blackwood. Drawing upon numerous interviews and unpublished letters from Blackwood's mother, Maureen Dufferin, and friends and family, including Andrew Harvey, Jonathan Raban, John Richardson, and Caroline's sister Perdita Blackwood, Nancy Schoenberger eloquently captures one of the most original and provocative figures in contemporary letters of the twentieth century.

""No popular culture. No gossip. Loved it."" -Clare Stephenson ""l like the history in this book"" -Michael Nally We spend a summer with an unlikely collection of strangers for whom, for whatever reason, the past is important; but it is more important than they imagine. The strands of their lives unexpectedly interweave. Each is a piece of a living jig-saw. They eventually put us in the picture. These extraordinary, ordinary people share with us a world where life's casual and inexplicable mysteries are discussed and accepted as commonplace. O'Brien explores themes of life, death, belief in a warm-hearted and easy style that is both beguiling and funny. Her undemanding intellect brings 'ologies and 'osophies out to play. There is an unworldly, fascinating mischief afoot here. You can't help but think out of the box.

Our creativity is inextricably entwined with our humanity. So what shall we make of the world?