Richard Sharpe Shaver achieved notoriety in the years following World War II as the author of controversial stories which were printed in science fiction magazines wherein Shaver claimed that he had personal experience of a sinister, ancient civilization that lived in caverns under the earth. The controversy stemmed from the fact that Shaver and his editor/publisher Ray Palmer claimed Shaver's writings, while presented in the guise of fiction, were fundamentally true.
Vilém Flusser was a media theorist and poetic philosopher.
André Aciman is an italian writer. His first novel (now a film), Call Me By Your Name, poignantly probes a boy's erotic coming-of-age at his family's Italian Mediterranean home. Elio - 17, extremely well-read, sensitive and the son of a prominent expatriate professor - finds himself troublingly attracted to this year's visiting resident scholar, recruited by his father from an American university. Oliver is 24, breezy and spontaneous, and at work on a book about Heraclitus. The young men loll about in bathing suits, play tennis, jog along the Italian Riviera and flirt. Both also flirt (and more) with women among their circle of friends, but Elio, who narrates, yearns for Oliver. Their shared literary interests and Jewishness help impart a sense of intimacy, and when they do consummate their passion in Oliver's room, they call each other by the other's name.
Maledicta, The International Journal of Verbal Aggression, is an academic journal dedicated to the study of offensive and negatively-valued words and expressions. Its main areas of interest are the origin, etymology, meaning, use, and influence of vulgar, obscene, aggressive, abusive, and blasphemous language.
George W. S. Trow was an American writer. He worked for The New Yorker for almost 30 years, and wrote numerous essays and several books. He is best known for his long essay on television and its effect on American culture, "Within the Context of No Context. Some critics have found these works impenetrable and elitist; some argue that Trow's nostalgia for the pre-television era was misplaced, because the subsequent civil rights movements had made American culture more democratic.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table is a collection of essays written by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. The essays take the form of a chiefly one-sided dialogue between the unnamed Author and the other residents of a New England boarding house who are known only by their profession, location at the table or other defining characteristics. The topics discussed range from an essay on the unexpected benefits of old age to the finest place to site a dwelling and comments on the nature of conversation itself. The tone of the book is distinctly Yankee and takes a comic approach to the subject matter.
Louis Zukofsky was a patient poet. His major work was the long poem "A" - he never referred to it without the quotation marks - which he began in 1927 and was to work on for the rest of his life, albeit with an eight-year hiatus between 1940 and 1948. The poem was divided into 24 sections, reflecting the hours of the day. The first eleven sections contain a lot of overtly political passages but interweave them with formal concerns and models that range from medieval Italian canzone through sonnets to free verse and the music of Bach. Especially the sections of "A" written shortly before World War II are political: Section 10 for example, published in 1940, is an intense and horrifying response to the fall of France. The tone of the poem changes for good with Section 12, which is longer than the first eleven sections combined. Zukofsky introduces material from his family life and celebrates his love for his wife Celia and his son Paul. From here on "A" interweaves the political, historical and personal in more or less equal measure. The extensive use of music in this work reflects the importance of Zukofsky's collaborations with his wife and son, both professional musicians. "A" grew frequently difficult and even eccentric (section 16 is only four words long). The complete poem, 826 pages long, beginning with the word "A" and ending with "Zion", was published in 1978.
Delmore Schwartz spent time at Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin before finally graduating from New York University in 1935. Soon after graduation, he made his parents' disastrous marriage the subject of his most famous short story, "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" which was published in 1937 in the first issue of Partisan Review.
Victor Gollancz studied the classics at Oxford University and during World War I began his life in publishing. In 1927, he set up his own publishing house and his career took off. Gollancz was ahead of this time and placed full-page adverts for his books in newspapers (very rare for this period) and his designers established a recognizable style featuring powerful typography and yellow dust jackets. Gollancz was creating branding 50 years before marketers embraced the buzzword.
Lost Illusions reveals, perhaps better than any other of Balzac's ninety-two novels, the nature and scope of his genius. The story of Lucien Chardon, a young poet from Angoulême who tries desperately to make a name for himself in Paris, is a brilliantly realistic and boldly satirical portrait of provincial manners and aristocratic life. Handsome and ambitious but naïve, Lucien is patronized by the beau monde as represented by Madame de Bargeton and her cousin, the formidable Marquise d'Espard, only to be duped by them. Denied the social rank he thought would be his, Lucien discards his poetic aspirations and turns to hack journalism; his descent into Parisian low life ultimately leads to his own death.