Robert Roper

The High-Altitude Life and Death of Willi Unsoeld, American Himalayan Legend

Fatal Mountaineer

Writing about the author of the immortal Lolita and Pale Fire, born to a distinguished Russian family, Robert Roper fills out Vladimir Nabokov's American period, covering Nabokov's critical friendship with Edmund Wilson, his time at Cornell, his role at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. But Nabokov in America finds its narrative heart in his serial sojourns into the wilds of the West, undertaken with his wife, Vera, and their son over more than a decade. Nabokov covered more than 200,000 miles as he indulged his other passion: butterfly collecting. Roper has mined fresh sources to bring detail to these journeys, and traces their significant influence in Nabokov's work: on two-lane highways and in late-'40s motels and cafes, we feel Lolita draw near, and understand Nabokov's seductive familiarity with the American mundane." --

on the road to Lolita

Nabokov in America

A young mountaineer in love with another climber faces the ultimate test of her life in the blue ice of the Himalayas.

A Novel

In Caverns of Blue Ice

A unique portrait of Vladimir Nabokov told through the lens of the years he spent in a land that enchanted him, America. The author of the immortal Lolita and Pale Fire, born to an eminent Russian family, conjures the apotheosis of the high modernist artist: cultured, refined-as European as they come. But Vladimir Nabokov, who came to America fleeing the Nazis, came to think of his time here as the richest of his life. Indeed, Nabokov was not only happiest here, but his best work flowed from his response to this exotic land. Robert Roper fills out this period in the writer's life with charm and insight- covering Nabokov's critical friendship with Edmund Wilson, his time at Cornell, his role at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. But Nabokov in America finds its narrative heart in his serial sojourns into the wilds of the West, undertaken with his wife, Vera, and their son over more than a decade. Nabokov covered more than 200,000 miles as he indulged his other passion: butterfly collecting. Roper has mined fresh sources to bring detail to these journeys, and traces their significant influence in Nabokov's work: on two-lane highways and in late-'40s motels and cafés, we feel Lolita draw near, and understand Nabokov's seductive familiarity with the American mundane. Nabokov in America is also a love letter to U.S. literature, in Nabokov's broad embrace of it from Melville to the Beats. Reading Roper, we feel anew the mountain breezes and the miles logged, the rich learning and the Romantic mind behind some of Nabokov's most beloved books.

On the Road to Lolita

Explaining a child's beginning, is sometimes difficult and considered taboo. This book is an honest, eye opening, and humorous, mother's attempt to satisfy her daughter's curiosity, of where babies come from?

Mommy, Where Do Babies Come From?

Willi Unsoeld became an international hero during the Kennedy years, when he emerged as probably the greatest American climber of the Himalayan golden age. Displaying the sort of vigor that President Kennedy so admired, Unsoeld became the most visible hero of an ascent of Everest's previously-unclimbed West Ridge -- an ascent that cost him parts of both feet and nearly his life. His casual fearlessness and physical power established the template for extreme adventure, and his lectures as a charismatic professor inspired the generation of the sixties to test itself in acts of physical daring. Fatal Mountaineer sets Willi Unsoeld's intense life against the story of two defining adventures: the triumph on Everest and a more ill-starred expedition in 1976, when he led a group of mountaineers up a new route on Nanda Devi, the tallest peak in India. One of that gifted group of climbers was Willi's daughter, Devi -- a golden girl named for the mountain she sought to ascend with her beloved father. The intense rivalries within the expedition team, and the dangers of the route, led to an outcome darkened by tragedy, an outcome that continues to fuel one of the most tormenting debates in mountaineering history. Blending adventure with a frank look at the cultural background, Fatal Mountaineer considers the pressures on mountaineers in a period of our history torn by conflict. It balances hunger for fame with stark tragedy, a man's ambition with a father's love. Unsoeld emerges as an American classic, a self-invented genius of adventure to rank with Mark Twain or Will Rogers for sheer attractiveness. Under the close scrutiny of this thrilling story, his heroism turns out to be deeply authentic-as does his suffering.

Născut într-o familie rusă remarcabilă, Vladimir Nabokov a ajuns în America fugind din calea naziștilor și și-a amintit perioada petrecută aici drept cea mai împlinită a vieții sale. Într-adevăr, cele mai bune lucrări ale lui s-au născut din răspunsul său la poveștile acestui pământ. Cu farmec și profunzime, Robert Roper completează această perioadă din viața autorului: prietenia lui cu Edmund Wilson, timpul petrecut la Cornell, rolul său la Muzeul Harvard de Zoologie Comparativă. Dar cartea își găsește nucleul narativ în călătoriile lui Nabokov și ale familiei sale în Vest. Roper a cercetat noi surse pentru a găsi detalii despre aceste călătorii și urmărește influența lor semnificativă în opera lui Nabokov: pe autostrăzile cu două benzi și în motelurile și cafenelele de la sfârșitul anilor 1940, simțim cum se schițează Lolita și înțelegem familiaritatea seducătoare a lui Nabokov cu viața cotidiană a Americii. Fascinant... Robert Roper reușește să aducă argumente convingătoare privind rolul esențial pe care l-a jucat America atât în crearea Lolitei, cât și în configurarea carierei ulterioare a lui Nabokov. The New York Times

Nabokov în America

"As seductive and engaging a book as I have come across in a while . . . Would have brought a gleam of enjoyment even to Nabokov’s gimlet eye." --Daphne Merkin, The New York Times Book Review

Walt Whitman's work as a nurse to the wounded soldiers of the Civil War had a profound effect on the way he saw the world. Much less well known is the extraordinary record of his younger brother, George, who led his men in twenty-one major battles, almost to die in a Confederate prison camp as the fighting ended. Drawing on the searing letters that Walt, George, their mother Louisa, and their other brothers, wrote to each other during the conflict, and on new evidence and new readings of the great poet, Now the Drum of War chronicles the experience of an archetypal American family-from rural Long Island to working-class Brooklyn-enduring its own long crisis alongside the anguish of the nation. Robert Roper has constructed a powerful narrative about America's greatest crucible, and a compelling story of our most original poet and one of our bravest soldiers. "Together, the brothers Whitman define the complementary aspects of a full human response to a catastrophe like the Civil War. One is on the side of nurturing and empathy, a lover-figure who becomes a tender friend or father; the other more in line with classical definitions of masculine virtue, a man who protects his fellow-fighters while resolutely destroying the enemy...The Whitmans did not arrive at their vocations independently, or out of nowhere; their family's stalwartness in terrible trials, especially their mother's, and their own continuing awareness of each other as the war darkened, year by year, for both of them, awoke in both a kind of greatness."

Walt Whitman and His Brothers in the Civil War

Now the Drum of War

Christine Ricci

"Basado en la serie de televisiaon Dora la exploradora que se presenta en Nick Jr."--P. [2] of cover.

Dora y la aventura de Navidad (Dora's Christmas Carol)

Marc Cerasini

When Mandy is voted "Principal for a Day!" at Beverly Hills High School, the new rules include guards patrolling the school and students acting like robots, and it is up to Sam, Alex, and Clover to find out who is really behind it.

Robert Roper

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