Diana's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 02 May 2021 12:57:27 -0700 60 Diana's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Canterbury Tales 2696 The procession that crosses Chaucer's pages is as full of life and as richly textured as a medieval tapestry. The Knight, the Miller, the Friar, the Squire, the Prioress, the Wife of Bath, and others who make up the cast of characters -- including Chaucer himself -- are real people, with human emotions and weaknesses. When it is remembered that Chaucer wrote in English at a time when Latin was the standard literary language across western Europe, the magnitude of his achievement is even more remarkable. But Chaucer's genius needs no historical introduction; it bursts forth from every page of The Canterbury Tales.

If we trust the General Prologue, Chaucer intended that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back. He never finished his enormous project and even the completed tales were not finally revised. Scholars are uncertain about the order of the tales. As the printing press had yet to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, The Canterbury Tales has been passed down in several handwritten manuscripts.

]]> 504 Geoffrey Chaucer 0140424385 Diana 0 to-read 3.51 1400 The Canterbury Tales
author: Geoffrey Chaucer
name: Diana
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1400
rating: 0
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]]> Roxana 332152 356 Daniel Defoe 0192834592 Diana 0 to-read 3.46 1724 Roxana
author: Daniel Defoe
name: Diana
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1724
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/28
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]]> The Sylph (European Classics) 1196085 306 Georgiana Cavendish 0810122294 Diana 0 to-read 3.59 1778 The Sylph (European Classics)
author: Georgiana Cavendish
name: Diana
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1778
rating: 0
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]]> The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 337113 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful depiction of a woman's fight for domestic independence and creative freedom.]]> 576 Anne Brontë 0140434747 Diana 0 to-read 4.00 1848 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
author: Anne Brontë
name: Diana
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1848
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/31
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]]> On the Face of the Waters 583312 0 Flora Annie Steel 074261087X Diana 0 to-read 3.27 1897 On the Face of the Waters
author: Flora Annie Steel
name: Diana
average rating: 3.27
book published: 1897
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/14
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]]> A Passage to India 45195 A Passage to India compellingly depicts the fate of individuals caught between the great political and cultural conflicts of the modern world.

In his introduction, Pankaj Mishra outlines Forster's complex engagement with Indian society and culture. This edition reproduces the Abinger text and notes, and also includes four of Forster's essays on India, a chronology and further reading.]]> 376 E.M. Forster 014144116X Diana 0 to-read 3.69 1924 A Passage to India
author: E.M. Forster
name: Diana
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1924
rating: 0
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]]> Atonement 6867
On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses the flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will change all their lives, a crime whose repercussions Atonement follows through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.]]> 351 Ian McEwan 038572179X Diana 0 to-read 3.94 2001 Atonement
author: Ian McEwan
name: Diana
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper]]> 37570548
What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888.

Their murderer was never identified, but the name created for him by the press has become far more famous than any of these five women.

In this devastating narrative of five lives, historian Hallie Rubenhold finally gives these women back their stories.]]> 352 Hallie Rubenhold Diana 0 to-read 4.06 2019 The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
author: Hallie Rubenhold
name: Diana
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/03/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840-1870]]> 961462
This period of mid-Victorian London covers a huge span: Victoria's wedding and the place of the royals in popular esteem; how the very poor lived, the underworld, prostitution, crime, prisons and transportation; the public utilities - Bazalgette on sewers and road design, Chadwick on pollution and sanitation; private charities - Peabody, Burdett Coutts - and workhouses; new terraced housing and transport, trains, omnibuses and the Underground; furniture and decor; families and the position of women; the prosperous middle classes and their new shops, e.g. Peter Jones, Harrods; entertaining and servants, food and drink; unlimited liability and bankruptcy; the rich, the marriage market, taxes and anti-semitism; the Empire, recruitment and press-gangs.

The period begins with the closing of the Fleet and Marshalsea prisons and ends with the first (steam-operated) Underground trains and the first Gilbert & Sullivan.]]> 496 Liza Picard 0753820900 Diana 4 4.03 2005 Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840-1870
author: Liza Picard
name: Diana
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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]]> Pride and Prejudice 1885 Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780679783268]]> 279 Jane Austen 1441341706 Diana 0 4.28 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Diana
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1813
rating: 0
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]]> How to Be a Victorian 17321139
We know what life was like for Victoria and Albert, but what was it like for a commoner? How did it feel to cook with coal and wash with tea leaves? Drink beer for breakfast and clean your teeth with cuttlefish? Dress in whalebone and feed opium to the baby? Catch the omnibus to work and wash laundry while wearing a corset?

How To Be A Victorian is a new approach to history, a journey back in time more intimate, personal, and physical than anything before. It is one told from the inside out--how our forebears interacted with the practicalities of their world--and it's a history of those things that make up the day-to-day reality of life, matters so small and seemingly mundane that people scarcely mention them in their diaries or letters. Moving through the rhythm of the day, from waking up to the sound of a knocker-upper man poking a stick at your window, to retiring for nocturnal activities, when the door finally closes on twenty-four hours of life, this astonishing guide illuminates the overlapping worlds of health, sex, fashion, food, school, work, and play.

If you liked The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century or 1000 Years of Annoying the French, you will love this book.]]> 458 Ruth Goodman 0670921351 Diana 0 4.24 2013 How to Be a Victorian
author: Ruth Goodman
name: Diana
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty]]> 37919365
Using research from nineteenth century beauty books, fashion magazines, and lady's journals, Mimi Matthews gives readers a glimpse of the social issues that influenced women's clothing and the societal outrage that was an all too frequent response to those bold females who used fashion and beauty as a means of asserting their individuality and independence.]]> 152 Mimi Matthews 1526705044 Diana 0 to-read 3.86 2018 A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty
author: Mimi Matthews
name: Diana
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/03/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Factory Lives: Four Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Autobiographies]]> 2735993 A Memoir of Robert Blincoe; William Dodd's A Narrative of the Experience and Sufferings of William Dodd; Ellen Johnston's Autobiography; and James Myles's Chapters in the Life of a Dundee Factory Boy.

This Broadview edition also includes a remarkably rich selection of historical documents that provide context for these works. Appendices include contemporary responses to the autobiographies, debates on factory legislation, transcripts of testimony given before parliamentary committees on child labour, and excerpts from literary works on factory life by Harriet Martineau, Frances Trollope, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, among others.]]> 496 James R. Simmons Jr. 1551112728 Diana 0 to-read 3.59 2007 Factory Lives: Four Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Autobiographies
author: James R. Simmons Jr.
name: Diana
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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]]> The Second Sex 457264 746 Simone de Beauvoir 0679724516 Diana 0 currently-reading 4.16 1949 The Second Sex
author: Simone de Beauvoir
name: Diana
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1949
rating: 0
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]]> The Origin of Species 22463
Yet The Origin of Species (1859) is also a humane and inspirational vision of ecological interrelatedness, revealing the complex mutual interdependencies between animal and plant life, climate and physical environment, and—by implication—within the human world.

Written for the general reader, in a style which combines the rigour of science with the subtlety of literature, The Origin of Species remains one of the founding documents of the modern age.]]> 703 Charles Darwin Diana 4 4.01 1859 The Origin of Species
author: Charles Darwin
name: Diana
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1859
rating: 4
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]]> The God Delusion 14743
With rigor and wit, Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament, to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers. He eviscerates the major arguments for religion, and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence.

The God Delusion makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just wrong, but potentially deadly. It also offers exhilarating insight into the advantages of atheism to the individual and society, not the least of which is a clearer, truer appreciation of the universe's wonders than any faith could ever muster.]]> 374 Richard Dawkins 0618680004 Diana 0 3.89 2006 The God Delusion
author: Richard Dawkins
name: Diana
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals]]> 6287100 460 Gillian Gill 0345484053 Diana 0 to-read 3.83 2009 We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals
author: Gillian Gill
name: Diana
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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]]> The Complete Poems 138134
Upon its publication in 1978, Jack Stillinger's The Poems of John Keats won exceptionally high praise: "The definitive Keats," proclaimed The New Republic--"An authoritative edition embodying the readings the poet himself most probably intended, prepared by the leading scholar in Keats textual studies."

Now this scholarship is at last available in a graceful, clear format designed to introduce students and general readers to the "real" Keats. In place of the textual apparatus that was essential to scholars, Stillinger here provides helpful explanatory notes. These notes give dates of composition, identify quotations and allusions, gloss names and words not included in the ordinary desk dictionary, and refer the reader to the best critical interpretations of the poems. The new introduction provides central facts about Keats's life and career, describes the themes of his best work, and speculates on the causes of his greatness.]]> 416 John Keats 0679601082 Diana 0 currently-reading 4.25 1820 The Complete Poems
author: John Keats
name: Diana
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1820
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hobbit, or There and Back Again]]> 5907 Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).]]> 366 J.R.R. Tolkien Diana 0 4.29 1937 The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Diana
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1937
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Confessions of an English Opium Eater]]> 87635 Confessions is a remarkable account of the pleasures and pains of worshipping at the 'Church of Opium'. Thomas De Quincey consumed daily large quantities of laudanum (at the time a legal painkiller), and this autobiography of addiction hauntingly describes his surreal visions and hallucinatory nocturnal wanderings through London, along with the nightmares, despair and paranoia to which he became prey. The result is a work in which the effects of drugs and the nature of dreams, memory and imagination are seamlessly interwoven, describing in intimate detail the mind-altering pleasures and pains unique to opium. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater forged a link between artistic self-expression and addiction, paving the way for later generations of literary addicts from Baudelaire to James Frey, and anticipating psychoanalysis with its insights into the subconscious.

This edition is based on the original serial version of 1821, and reproduces two 'sequels', 'Suspiria de Profundis' (1845) and 'The English Mail-Coach' (1849). It also includes a critical introduction discussing the romantic figure of the addict and the tradition of confessional literature, and an appendix on opium in the nineteenth century.

Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) studied at Oxford, failing to take his degree but discovering opium. He later met Coleridge, Southey and the Wordsworths. From 1828 until his death he lived in Edinburgh and made his living from journalism.

If you enjoyed Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, you might like William S. Burroughs' Junky, available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'De Quincey was one of the first great autobiographers'
Jonathan Bate]]> 352 Thomas de Quincey Diana 4 3.30 1821 Confessions of an English Opium Eater
author: Thomas de Quincey
name: Diana
average rating: 3.30
book published: 1821
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[A Little History of Philosophy (Little Histories)]]> 11527504
In forty brief chapters, Nigel Warburton guides us on a chronological tour of the major ideas in the history of philosophy. He provides interesting and often quirky stories of the lives and deaths of thought-provoking philosophers from Socrates, who chose to die by hemlock poisoning rather than live on without the freedom to think for himself, to Peter Singer, who asks the disquieting philosophical and ethical questions that haunt our own times.

Warburton not only makes philosophy accessible, he offers inspiration to think, argue, reason, and ask in the tradition of Socrates. A Little History of Philosophy presents the grand sweep of humanity's search for philosophical understanding and invites all to join in the discussion.]]> 252 Nigel Warburton 0300152086 Diana 4 4.12 2011 A Little History of Philosophy (Little Histories)
author: Nigel Warburton
name: Diana
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2013/09/22
date added: 2013/09/22
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Great book for those with very little or no knowledge of philosophy. It really made me want to learn more.
]]> My New York Diary 223791

THE CLASSIC GRAPHIC NOVEL, BACK IN PRINT

Back in print is the classic graphic novel by the acclaimed (though no longer working in comics) iconic artist Julie Doucet. In one of the first contemporary graphic novels, Doucet abruptly packs her bags and moves to New York. Trouble follows her in the form of a jealous boyfriend, insecurity about her talent, her worsening epilepsy, and a tendency to self-medicate with booze and drugs.

]]> 104 Julie Doucet 1896597831 Diana 0 to-read 3.84 1999 My New York Diary
author: Julie Doucet
name: Diana
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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]]> Paying for It 10108380 A CONTEMPORARY DEFENSE OF THE WORLD'S OLDEST PROFESSION

Chester Brown has never shied away from tackling controversial subjects in his work. In his 1992 book, The Playboy, he explored his personal history with pornography. His bestselling 2003 graphic novel, Louis Riel, was a biographical examination of an extreme political figure. The book won wide acclaim and cemented Brown's reputation as a true innovator.

Paying for It is a natural progression for Brown as it combines the personal and sexual aspects of his autobiographical work with the polemical drive of Louis Riel. Brown calmly lays out the facts of how he became not only a willing participant in but a vocal proponent of one of the world's most hot-button topics—prostitution. While this may appear overly sensational and just plain implausible to some, Brown's story stands for itself. Paying for It offers an entirely contemporary exploration of sex work—from the timid john who rides his bike to his escorts, wonders how to tip so as not to offend, and reads Dan Savage for advice, to the modern-day transactions complete with online reviews, seemingly willing participants, and clean apartments devoid of clichĂ©d street corners, drugs, or pimps.

Complete with a surprise ending, Paying for It provides endless debate and conversation about sex work and will be the most talkedabout graphic novel of 2011.]]> 292 Chester Brown 1770460489 Diana 3 3.61 2011 Paying for It
author: Chester Brown
name: Diana
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2011
rating: 3
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]]> Madame Bovary 2175 329 Gustave Flaubert 0192840398 Diana 3 3.70 1856 Madame Bovary
author: Gustave Flaubert
name: Diana
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1856
rating: 3
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]]> Le peuple et le roi 8851735
Longtemps, Louis XVI oscille entre fermeté et faiblesse devant le vent de liberté qui souffle sur le royaume. Et si le peuple aime son roi, il a trÚs faim, il est écrasé d'impÎts, il entend Voltaire, Mirabeau, Danton, Robespierre appeler à la justice, puis à l'action et à la révolte...

Peuple, philosophes, bourgeois, clergĂ©, nobles, roi, tous, finalement, seront emportĂ©s par la tempĂȘte de la violence. " Comme un fleuve en crue sorti de son lit et qui dĂ©vaste les champs qu'il avait d'abord irriguĂ©s, la RĂ©volution a recouvert de sang ce qu'elle avait crĂ©Ă© ", Ă©crit Max Gallo. Un rĂ©cit exaltant et fondateur du sĂ©isme majeur de notre Histoire.


"Tout au long des pages, on frémit, on vibre. Comme si on y était."
Alain Decaux, de l'AcadĂ©mie française â€� Le Figaro littĂ©raire]]> 480 Max Gallo 2266198076 Diana 0 to-read 3.92 2008 Le peuple et le roi
author: Max Gallo
name: Diana
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/02/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China]]> 2635587

China has 130 million migrant workers—the largest migration in human history. In Factory Girls , Leslie T. Chang, a former correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, tells the story of these workers primarily through the lives of two young women, whom she follows over the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of Dongguan, an industrial city in China’s Pearl River Delta.

As she tracks their lives, Chang paints a never-before-seen picture of migrant life—a world where nearly everyone is under thirty; where you can lose your boyfriend and your friends with the loss of a mobile phone; where a few computer or English lessons can catapult you into a completely different social class. Chang takes us inside a sneaker factory so large that it has its own hospital, movie theater, and fire department; to posh karaoke bars that are fronts for prostitution; to makeshift English classes where students shave their heads in monklike devotion and sit day after day in front of machines watching English words flash by; and back to a farming village for the Chinese New Year, revealing the poverty and idleness of rural life that drive young girls to leave home in the first place. Throughout this riveting portrait, Chang also interweaves the story of her own family’s migrations, within China and to the West, providing historical and personal frames of reference for her investigation.

A book of global significance that provides new insight into China, Factory Girls demonstrates how the mass movement from rural villages to cities is remaking individual lives and transforming Chinese society, much as immigration to America’s shores remade our own country a century ago.]]> 420 Leslie T. Chang 0385520174 Diana 4 3.92 2008 Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China
author: Leslie T. Chang
name: Diana
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2008
rating: 4
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]]> Les Fleurs du Mal 203220 Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) remains powerful and relevant for our time.

In Spleen et idĂ©al," Baudelaire dramatizes the erotic cycle of ecstacy and anguish--of sexual and romantic love. Tableaux Parisiens condemns the crushing effects of urban planning on a city's soul and praises the city's anti-heroes including the deranged and derelict. Le Vin centers on the search for oblivion in drink and drugs. The many kinds of love that lie outside traditional morality is the focus of Fleurs du Mal while rebellion is at the heart of žéĂ©±čŽÇ±ôłÙ±đ.]]> 365 Charles Baudelaire 0879234628 Diana 4 4.23 1857 Les Fleurs du Mal
author: Charles Baudelaire
name: Diana
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1857
rating: 4
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]]> Victorian People and Ideas 427688 338 Richard D. Altick 039309376X Diana 0 to-read 3.77 1973 Victorian People and Ideas
author: Richard D. Altick
name: Diana
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1973
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Restoration London : Everyday Life in the 1660s]]> 565274 330 Liza Picard 1842127306 Diana 0 to-read 4.11 1997 Restoration London : Everyday Life in the 1660s
author: Liza Picard
name: Diana
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London]]> 1184786
Victorian London was a world where long-standing traditions of class and gender were challenged by a range of public spectacles, mass media scandals, new commercial spaces, and a proliferation of new sexual categories and identities. In the midst of this changing culture, women of many classes challenged the traditional privileges of elite males and
asserted their presence in the public domain.

An important catalyst in this conflict, argues Walkowitz, was W. T. Stead's widely read 1885 article about child prostitution. Capitalizing on the uproar caused by the piece and the volatile political climate of the time, women spoke of sexual danger, articulating their own grievances against men, inserting themselves into the public discussion of sex to an unprecedented extent, and gaining new entree to public spaces and journalistic practices. The ultimate manifestation of class anxiety and gender antagonism came in 1888 with the tabloid tales of Jack the Ripper. In between, there were quotidien stories of sexual possibility and urban adventure, and Walkowitz examines them all, showing how women were not simply figures in the imaginary landscape of male spectators, but also central actors in the stories of metropolotin life that reverberated in courtrooms, learned journals, drawing rooms, street corners, and in the letters columns of the daily press.

A model of cultural history, this ambitious book will stimulate and enlighten readers across a broad range of interests.]]> 368 Judith R. Walkowitz 0226871460 Diana 0 to-read 3.92 1992 City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London
author: Judith R. Walkowitz
name: Diana
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Celestial Railroad and Other Stories (Signet Classics) by Hawthorne, Nathaniel Reissue edition published by Signet Classics (2006) [Mass Market Pa]]> 47063 297 Nathaniel Hawthorne 0451530209 Diana 5 3.91 1864 The Celestial Railroad and Other Stories (Signet Classics) by Hawthorne, Nathaniel Reissue edition published by Signet Classics (2006) [Mass Market Pa
author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
name: Diana
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1864
rating: 5
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]]> The Dharma Bums 412732 On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums is sparked by Kerouac's expansiveness, humor, and a contagious zest for life.]]> 244 Jack Kerouac Diana 3 3.94 1958 The Dharma Bums
author: Jack Kerouac
name: Diana
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1958
rating: 3
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]]> Our Mutual Friend 31244 Our Mutual Friend revolves around the inheritance of a dust-heap where the rich throw their trash. When the body of John Harmon, the dust-heap’s expected heir, is found in the Thames, fortunes change hands surprisingly, raising to new heights “Noddyâ€� Boffin, a low-born but kindly clerk who becomes “the Golden Dustman.â€� Charles Dickens’s last complete novel, Our Mutual Friend encompasses the great themes of his earlier works: the pretensions of the nouveaux riches, the ingenuousness of the aspiring poor, and the unfailing power of wealth to corrupt all who crave it. With its flavorful cast of characters and numerous subplots, Our Mutual Friend is one of Dickens’s most complex—and satisfying—novels.]]> 801 Charles Dickens 0375761144 Diana 5 4.08 1865 Our Mutual Friend
author: Charles Dickens
name: Diana
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1865
rating: 5
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]]> Cleopatra: A Life 7968243 The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer brings to life the most intriguing woman in the history of the world: Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt.

Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator.

Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious sister as well; incest and assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex with only two men. They happen, however, to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, among the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra had a child with Caesar and–after his murder–three more with his protĂ©gĂ©. Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antony confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two would together attempt to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations ever since.

Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra’s supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff ‘s is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.]]> 369 Stacy Schiff 0316001929 Diana 0 to-read 3.73 2010 Cleopatra: A Life
author: Stacy Schiff
name: Diana
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/02/03
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]]>