Bob Blaisdell

A compilation of writings by some of the best-known revolutionaries in history, including Marx, Mao, and Rousseau.

Marx, Marat, Paine, Mao, Gandhi, and Others

The Communist Manifesto and Other Revolutionary Writings

Over 180 well-chosen Imagist gems appear in this tribute to an important and influential poetic movement of the 20th century. Includes short verse by Pound, Lawrence, Hilda Doolittle, Joyce, Stevens, others.

An Anthology

Imagist Poetry

The Emergence of a Literary Genius

Chekhov Becomes Chekhov

Chekov Becomes Chekov

This compilation of classic short fiction presents stories inspired by life in the great metropolis. Contributors include O. Henry, Melville, Cather, Wharton, Wodehouse, Langston Hughes, Junot Díaz, and others.

New York Stories

Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard (b. 1968) made a literary mark on his home country in 1998, when his debut novel won the prestigious Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature. His fame continued to grow with the publication of his six-volume autobiographical series Min Kamp, or My Struggle. Translated into English in 2012, the critically acclaimed and controversial series garnered global attention, as did its author. Conversations with Karl Ove Knausgaard is a collection of twenty-two interviews, each conducted during the ten-year span in which Knausgaard’s literary prowess gained worldwide recognition. Knausgaard is both a daring writer and a daring interviewee. He grounds his observations in the ordinary aspects of the world around him, which, he insists, is the same world in front of most of his readers. He regards his appearances in newspapers, magazines, and literary festivals as “a performance,” where he plays himself. While that role may differ from his inner life, it is consistent with the role he plays in his autobiographical novels. Fans of Knausgaard will easily recognize this public persona, an embodiment of the protagonist, husband, and father featured in My Struggle and in the Seasons quartet. Knausgaard discusses his work, aspects of his personal life, and his writing routines and practices in marvelous detail. He comments on literary and artistic world classics and on international contemporary authors. A bilingual speaker, he is accustomed to appearing before the press and in front of audiences in his roles as a famous author and as the publisher and cofounder of the publishing house Pelikanen (Pelican). Remarkable for his candor and directness, Knausgaard delivers the same variety and number of surprises in these interviews as he does in his most thrilling books.

Conversations with Karl Ove Knausgaard

Compilation of the best proverbs from around the world — ancient and modern — offers concise, time-honored wisdom about love, money, politics, and human nature. Handsome gift-book format makes this volume an ideal present.

Proverbs from Around the World

There's a Saying for That

Inexpensive but substantial anthology begins with Thoreau's 19th-century essay and concludes in the present day. Contributors include Tolstoy, Bertrand Russell, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi, others.

Essays on Civil Disobedience

Published to coincide with the start of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, this new collection of important short works has been compiled by an expert on Civil War literature. Contributors include many of the most famous authors of the era: Whitman, Melville, Longfellow, Bierce, Alcott, Twain, and Whittier.

Civil War Short Stories and Poems

A revelatory portrait of Chekhov during the most extraordinary artistic surge of his life. In 1886, a twenty-six-year-old Anton Chekhov was publishing short stories, humor pieces, and articles at an astonishing rate, and was still a practicing physician. Yet as he honed his craft and continued to draw inspiration from the vivid characters in his own life, he found himself—to his surprise and ocassional embarassment—admired by a growing legion of fans, including Tolstoy himself. He had not yet succumbed to the ravages of tuberculosis. He was a lively, frank, and funny correspondant and a dedicated mentor. And as Bob Blaisdell discovers, his vivid articles, stories, and plays from this period—when read in conjunction with his correspondence—become a psychological and emotional secret diary. When Chekhov struggled with his increasingly fraught engagement, young couples are continually making their raucous way in and out of relationships on the page. When he was overtaxed by his medical duties, his doctor characters explode or implode. Chekhov’s talented but drunken older brothers and Chekhov’s domineering father became transmuted into characters, yet their emergence from their families serfdom is roiling beneath the surface. Chekhov could crystalize the human foiibles of the people he knew into some of the most memorable figures in literature and drama. In Chekhov Becomes Chekhov, Blaisdell astutely examines the psychological portraits of Chekhov's distinct, carefully observed characters and how they reflect back on their creator during a period when there seemed to be nothing between his imagination and the paper he was writing upon.

"There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person," declared the philosopher and wit G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936). The extent and variety of the author's writings ― comprising journalism, history, biography, apologetics, poetry, plays, and detective fiction ― attest to his own diversity of enthusiasms. This rich and thought-provoking anthology draws from Chesterton's vast treasury of publications to present his most trenchant observations on education, humor, literature, religion, politics, class, and other topics. Editor Bob Blaisdell offers an insightful introduction to Chesterton's life and works and identifies the source of each quotation. Organized thematically, the quotes range from quips from Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries ("The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.") and novels ("Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline.") to his newspaper columns ("An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.") and essays ("No man must be superior to the things that are common to men.… Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick."). "If you're a fan of Chesterton's writing than this quote collection will be great for you. Blaisdell's introduction is also very interesting. The kind of book that would do great on a coffee table, ready to be picked up and browsed through at random times." — A Universe in Words

G. K. Chesterton Quotes

Essays spanning 4 centuries reflect the wit, wisdom, and common sense of a number of distinguished English writers. Includes works by Addison, Swift, Johnson, Goldsmith, Lamb, Woolf, Shaw, and others.

From Bacon to Chesterton

Great English Essays

"This original anthology features tales written mostly by former soldiers and others with firsthand experience of World War I's devastation. Contents include "Introduction to the Trenches" by Richard Aldington, "The Blind Ones," by Isaak Babel, and tales by Ernest Hemingway, Ford Madox Ford, John Galsworthy, Rudyard Kipling, Katherine Mansfield, and others"--

World War One Short Stories

This compact volume offers a broad selection of the most important documents in American history: the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which ratified women's right to vote; the Supreme Court's decision on Brown v. Board of Education; and the "Heroism and Horror" portion of the 9/11 Commission Report; as well as presidential speeches, Acts and Declarations of Congress, essays, letters, and much more. The compilation of more than 70 documents opens with nineteenth-century speeches by Red Cloud ("The Great Spirit Made Us Both") and Chief Joseph ("I Will Fight No More Forever") and concludes with the election night speech by Senator Barack Obama on November 4, 2008. Many of the selections recapture the voices of great Americans, from Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech to Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 "The Four Freedoms" State of the Union Message, the Apollo 11 astronaut narratives from the moon, and addresses by Susan B. Anthony, John Muir, Margaret Sanger, William Jennings Bryan, and many others. Brief introductions to each document place the works in historical context.

From Reconstruction to the Twenty-first Century

Essential Documents of American History

Inspiring, comforting, profound works by more than 60 British and American poets: Donne, Jonson, Herbert, Milton, Marvell, Cowper, Blake, Brontë, Rossetti, Dickinson, many others.

Poems of Faith

Historical survey of speeches invoking racism, genocide, anti-Semitism, terrorism, and other hateful, extremist views. Includes orations by Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Andrew Jackson, Joseph R. McCarthy, Jefferson Davis, and others.

From Robespierre to Osama bin Laden

Infamous Speeches

This wide-ranging collection of romantic tales features an international array of authors, including Chekhov's "A Misfortune," Lawrence's "The White Stocking," and stories by Pushkin, Trollope, Verga, von Kleist, and many others.

Great Love Stories

Robert Blaisdell

Thea Kliros

An adaptation of the legend of Hercules, son of the god Zeus and a mortal woman and renowned for his great strength, who performs twelve "impossible" tasks.

The Story of Hercules

Concise anthology covers works by Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Henry James, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and many others. Includes introductory notes and suggestions for further reading.

From 1865 to 1922

The Dover Anthology of American Literature, Volume II

This anthology offers a historical survey of speeches that invoke racism, genocide, anti-Semitism, terrorism, and other hateful, extremist views. It includes Jefferson Davis' announcement of Southern secession, Hitler's proclamation of Germany's right to world domination, and Osama bin Laden's warning of another 9/11. Brief introductions place the speeches in historical context.

Bob Blaisdell

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